Avatar
by kitsune13
Summary: AU, set game-time. Given the opportunity to become the will behind their favorite video game characters, no one hesitated. Little did they know that the 'game' was more than anyone thought or that it would spiral so far off course. NO OCs. Cloud/Tifa
1. Chapter 1

_in a fit of absolute madness brought on by too many Japanese game shows on YouTube, James Cameron's latest movie and many, many references to World of Warcraft, I typed this up. demonegg was a bad influence and so I posted it to my LiveJournal account. Everyone there was an even WORSE influence and so I decided to post it on ffnet in my _For Their Own Good _drabbles folder. Everyone HERE was even worse than that and so I'm posting this as a stand alone story since apparently it's going to develop a life of it's own whether I want it to or not. Be warned, this started off as an absolute crackfic... but we've already seen how those sometimes go for me (*cough*_TalesWithinTales_*cough*) **WARNING:** I will NOT be able to update this weekly the way I try with my long running stories. I have several other stories that were already first in line (not to mention the original one I'm supposed to be writing for publication). I'm sorry, I will try to keep this one flowing but, for now, it won't be weekly updates. I hate to do that to my readers - really hate to do that to my readers - but it's the only way, at this point, I'm going to be able to add this one to my writing load. Forgive me? You know I'll do my best. _

_quick explanation of the setting? consider this the mix between an online game like WoW that you can actually plug your entire consciousness into and a Japanese game show based off of that (think 'Survivor' or 'Amazing Race'). Rating is for safety (and Cloud) ;)_

_Game on...  
_

**Avatar**

by TamLin

As psyched as she'd been about the game, there had been some serious trepidation the day the contest was scheduled to start. Sure, the producers could assure her all they wanted that the setting was absolutely authentic looking and that her personality had been chosen because it was the best match for the character she was supposed to be playing – but that wasn't the same as standing there in front of the transfer tubes realizing you were about to become the living embodiment of a fan revered and iconic fictional character. Fitting herself to the electronic nodes and interfaces of the on-line avatar didn't help her nerves any either. Sure, it was one thing to run through the programs and tutorials on her own but the only other 'actor' she'd had any interaction with, in or out of the training sessions, was Bruce, otherwise known as Red XIII. She wouldn't be seeing him once they were sealed 'in game' for quite some time. So she'd been understandably nervous when she'd blinked open her eyes in the new body and new world the game designers had created.

After a few hours of running the bar, and having Biggs stare at her chest, though, she was starting to get into the feel of the game. The producers had told them all that the game wouldn't go exactly like the original video game of so many years ago but there were enough similarities to let her slip into her role. She still ran a bar called Seventh Heaven. It was still home to a rag tag band of terrorists intent on blowing things up and freeing the planet from the life draining mako reactors.

She still had a very short skirt and a very large… top. Though at least it was realistically large and not 'poke someone's eyes out with those things' large. Though if Biggs kept staring she might try to poke him in the eye.

The door to the bar swung open and Barret came in. He kept forgetting to answer to his character's name but he answered just fine when they yelled 'hey you!' at him. The thought made her smile to herself and she took Bigg's drink away from him. He protested – which meant he'd been paying attention to something other than her chest at least and it was enough to distract her from the man that walked through the door after Barrett.

Because, avatar or not, the Cloud Strife in this game simulation was dangerously attractive.

It didn't help that she'd had a crush on the fictional character when she was a kid… and maybe a little beyond childhood – either.

The mike hidden in her ear hissed a little and Macy's voice came over it. Or rather the sound of her voice because all her 'gamer' was doing was 'ooooh'ing.

Macy did that every time the blond walked into the room.

She thought, she hoped, that hearing it often enough meant that she didn't blush every time it happened anymore. According to the game's designers, the Cloud Strife avatar was 'souped up' compared to theirs. Better eyesight just seemed like it would go along with that deal.

Macy was one of her 'gamers'. Swift was the other. Each avatar in the game had three players. Her – who actually inhabited the body and was the main 'actor' and two 'gamers' who were actually sitting in a booth in the outside real world in front of monitors. Their job was to see things from a gamer's perspective and to guide, and guard, her as she went through the actual game itself. The game designers had found that the audience watching the game enjoyed having three people for each team, especially since they could real time intact via the internet with Macy or Swift – or any of the other 'gamers' for that matter. She liked her team and she liked both Macy and Swift. Especially since they were both much more knowledgeable about the semantics of the game than she was. They'd been introduced during training and they'd all fit nicely into each other's nuances.

Not, she suspected, the way Jessie's gamers did if the other woman's constant muttering indicated anything.

"Biggs," she tapped her fingers on the counter top to get his attention and then slowly drew it up to her face. "My eyes are up here," she repeated ("eleven" Swift was keeping count of the number of times she said it). "And you should probably head down to the hide out. You know how Barret is."

"That's right," the voice came from behind her and she jumped even as she shut her eyes and mentally cursed how quiet the designers had made a certain avatar when it walked. From the sound of Macy's snickers in her ear, the 'lapse' on their part had been intentional. One of Cloud's hands reached passed her to rest on the bar and it put his body in close, full, contact with hers. "He's got a hard-on because he's got the latest mission parameters and he just can't wait to share."

Barret was, in fact, bellowing at the rest of the team to get their 'sorry asses' down stairs and already cranking the lever that set the entrance to the room opening. It served to distract her for all of 3.5 seconds from the way it felt to have Cloud pressed up against her back. Biggs was glaring at the man behind her and Cloud made a noise in the back of his throat that somehow managed to sound both dismissive and aggressive at the same time. His other hand came around to spread, leather clad fingers wide, over her bare stomach and in her ear Macy squealed while she just tried not to shiver. Near the side of her head, Cloud's low voice rumbled:

"Sure, they look amazing. But they feel even better. Now piss off."

It took Biggs jaw-clenching and furious glare to have what Cloud had just implied sinking in and she was still blinking and processing it as the other man slid off his bar stool and stormed over to the entrance to the hidden room.

"Cloud!" she tried not to protest it too loudly and it came out between her teeth instead. All it earned her was the roll of a shoulder against her.

"What?" His voice sounded almost lazy and his head was turned away from her to watch the last of the team disappear down into the hidden room.

"We're not doing _that_!" Game or no, she had certain standards and it didn't matter how good looking a guy was, there was none of – _that _– going on within the first day. Not even in a fictional character's body. Something that might – might – have been a sound of amusement came near her ear.

"Then how is it supposed to be believable tomorrow morning when you ask me if I slept well and I answer 'next to you, who wouldn't'?"

She could actually feel the vibrations against her when he spoke in that low voice and she tried not to shiver again. She made a noise of her own and was about to tell him that there was no way she was asking him how he slept, tomorrow or ever for that matter, when he added in a quieter voice:

"Besides, maybe now he'll leave you alone."

It surprised her so much that she actually turned her head to look at him over her shoulder but he was looking very intently at something on the far door instead, brows down over his eyes with a slight frown. She looked too but didn't see anything that hadn't been there two minutes ago. As she looked away, he made another noise in his throat and his hand shifted from her stomach to her hip, holding her in place while he reached down under the bar and pulled out one of the glass sake bottles. The bottom of it caught the seam where her legs were pressed together and dragged upward along them. Her eyes went wide again and she caught his wrist in her fingers just as the glass hit the hem of her skirt. He chuckled but didn't lift it any more.

"Come on, Tifa," his voice was against her ear, low and coaxing. "Give me something hard."

"How about a brass knuckle sandwich?" she grit out between her teeth and his chuckle came again. His hand gave her hip a light squeeze and withdrew. He withdrew. But not before she thought she heard him say:

"That's my girl."

She watched him walk over to the trap door and drop down. In her ear she heard Macy state:

"I never knew Cloud was that…"

While she paused to search for a word, Tifa supplied:

"Sexually aggressive."

Macy let out a whistle.

"Hot."


	2. Chapter 2

_all right. For some reason it doesn't seem ffnet posted my story though it DID send out the announcements (thanks to everybunny that has me on author's alert ;). So here we go with Chapter 2 and hopefully I'll now show up in the listings - lol. Thank you so much to all of my best beloveds who have left wonderful reviews and comments and encouragement just about everywhere they possibly can. It's their fault this story is going anywhere. You guys are pure **e-vile** - and I adore you for it_

Chapter 2:

Things were simple when you were fighting. It was turn, turn, slice, side step, uppercut, kick, block, slice, slice, slice. It wasn't the fighting itself that was simple but you could find a zone within it in which each move seemed to naturally flow from the last. It was the black and white aspect of fighting that was the relief. Kill them – don't kill them. Simple. Easy. No fine lines. No gray. You fought until everyone was either dead or on the same team and your gamer was cheerfully crowing: "da dada da da DA da daDA!" through your earpiece at you. The sword hilt spun and the familiar, reassuring weight of metal smacks and then settles against your back, part shield, part counter-weight.

He felt guilty for the simplicity and yet found satisfaction and pleasure in it all the same.

Next to him, now that the fight was over, HeyYou was reloading and closer still, Tifa was shaking out her hands and rolling her shoulders backward to pop them.

He didn't feel the least bit guilty for enjoying the show.

"How much further?" she asked and he turned his head to look at the ladder they'd need to take to get off this floor.

"Three more levels. Bridge. Reactor core."

She nodded and moved forward to collect the bonus items the vanished guard machine had left behind. Personally, he didn't understand the logic of an inanimate object carrying items useful to a party of wets but he wasn't about to protest something that helped his team either.

In true game style, everything she decided to keep went… somewhere. When she decided she needed it, it would 'magically' reappear. He didn't like not having things at hand. Deep down he didn't trust it. But he had to admit that it made his kit a lot lighter and at least his sword didn't disappear when he wasn't using it.

She was done and moving passed him and Hey had finished and was hoofing it for the ladder. They weren't on a time limit per say but the longer they stayed in one place the more the program decided they needed enemies to keep them busy. It just wouldn't do to have the people watching it at home get bored.

The Audience was everything. As long as they were entertained, the ratings stayed high and the producers and companies running ads were happy. The second the Audience got bored, the producers panicked and did stupid and potentially dangerous things to the game to get their attention back.

He'd heard of some weird shit turning up in some games.

Tifa was waiting for him at the ladder and Hey was already halfway up it. He didn't even try to stop his lips from smirking as he braced an arm to corner her between himself and the ladder. He liked the way it made her press her lips together and the sparks glint in her narrowing eyes.

She didn't however knee him in the groin and he took that as positive reinforcement.

"A gentleman always lets a lady go first."

She gave him an eloquent look and her full lips briefly thinned again. It was a dangerous habit she had and he liked it.

"If I see a gentleman, I'll remember that. In the meantime, you go first."

He knew why and he let his other hand reach out to cup her hip, pulling her against him there, before sliding his palm down her thigh to the hem of her skirt. It wasn't a very long slide. The edges of her eyes narrowed again at him dangerously but the pink also dusted over her pale cheeks.

Her eyes and lips were detrimental but every time he saw that shy color blooming it threatened to undo him entirely, making his legs weak and his hands want to shake. That blush of hers had a straight shot at the vulnerable crack of what was left of his raw heart and never failed to hurt as it lodged deep.

He gave the hem of her skirt a light tug instead, just enough to indicate where his fingers were. As if she wasn't already aware.

"The bad guys get to look up your skirt."

"They also end up dead," she informed him pertly and despite himself the snorted laugh escaped him.

God. He adored her.

He always had. From his childhood – and then all those lost years in between. It hadn't mattered. The second he'd spotted her in the studio, all those memories from childhood had come flooding back and he'd fallen for her all over again. There had been no way, after that, that he'd have let anyone else become Cloud's 'actor'.

Not that she knew any of that.

Not as if he was about to tell her.

"Might be worth the risk."

"Love birds!" Hey was at the top of the ladder. "Either hump it or hump each other but stop takin' all day to decide. Some of us wanna get home in time for the soaps."

Again, even though it went against the persona he had crafted, he had to lower his head and laugh in the back of his throat. It was all right though because Tifa was snickering, little hiccupping, stifled sounds and for just a minute, the sexual tension was washed over and filled up with something much softer and friendlier.

"I can't believe they pump in daytime TV for him."

He grinned.

"I can't believe he admits he's an addict."

Her eyes were shining as they met his and, for just a minute, his heart stopped, she was so beautiful. And then his blood froze as he watched a sudden spark light her face. Recognition. Or, from the puzzled look that followed, at least familiarity. Her lips parted, a question she wasn't sure of on them, and he slipped his thumb under the hem of her skirt and brushed the soft skin of her thigh.

She jumped and her eyes flashed warning at him again as her hand snapped down to lock fingers around his wrist. The spark of unfocused recognition diffused and the tight bands around his chest loosened in relief.

She glared at him. He smirked back.

"Skirt looks pretty tight. Might even be considered a bit of a bind. You need me to help you out of it?"

Her other hand caught the bottom of his elbow and locked it in place as, in one smooth motion, she ducked under his arm and out from in front of him.

"I think I'll manage," she informed him dryly and he chuckled to himself as he caught the first rungs of the ladder and started up. Inwardly though, he cursed himself. He'd almost slipped up in front of her. He wasn't sure how but she'd almost thought she might know him from somewhere.

He'd make it a point to make sure he wasn't that careless again.

He caught her giving him vaguely puzzled looks a couple of times after that but nothing solid. He ignored them and went about dissipating monsters, machines and the occasional guard as they worked their way through the reactor.

They were in the process of mopping the floor with a couple low level guards when one of them fired a blast of fog from his gun. The white mist wrapped around Tifa –

And she dropped like a rock.

There was no graceful arch backward or slow slide downward. Her knees simply folded up and she went straight down.

"Hey You! Cover!"

He was on his knee and catching her before she even had time to pitch forward. His quick check found her still breathing and so he sank his sword into the ground in front of both of them like a shield while Hey ripped into the guards with gunfire. Angry for the first time, Cloud clenched a fist and called down lightning.

It went off spectacularly and explosively and the guards went up in sparking colors. It was the first time the sight of computer particles disintegrating wasn't satisfying. He lifted the sword, slung it on his back and scooped Tifa up in his arms.

"Keep movin'," he jerked his head to indicate the direction and Hey, without having to be told, trotted up ahead, taking point. Cloud came behind with Tifa.

She was breathing deeply and her color was good. She looked relaxed. He could still smell the lingering residue of the chemical on her that had been in the mist and it made him a little light headed.

Sleep? Good possibility.

Bad combination.

"White?" he muttered it and waited for his gamer to make an affirming noise over the earpiece before he stated: "How are the Lions doing?"

"Already?" Black sputtered and Cloud ignored his second gamer. White's voice came calmly back.

"The Seibu Lions won their last game, 8 to 3. They switched out Hakashi in the second inning. Haruno had the most runs. You owe me fifty yen."

Cloud made a noise in his throat and then stated:

"Here," to catch HeyYou's attention as he ducked behind a bend in the hallway and went to his knees. Hey doubled back to them and took up cover at the entry point. Cloud had to wonder where he'd gotten his military training because, while it wasn't any style he was used to seeing, it was effective.

"Fifty," he repeated and then started the internal clock counting in his head.

He didn't care about the Lions, or any Japanese baseball teams for that matter. But he could keep them easily in his head and no one would think twice to look for a code when men started talking sports.

He turned his attention on the limp woman in his arms.

Christ. She was breathtaking…

Propping her back up against his raised knee, he tucked her in close against his body and then gently took her face in his gloved palms.

"Tifa." No reaction from her meant he carefully shook her face between his hands. She made a noise and he repeated her name:

"Tifa."

Eyes the color of mulled wine drifted slowly open and looked blankly at him. He squelched the relief that washed through him and instead moved one of his fingers in front of her face. Her eyes tracked it automatically and then blinked before focusing with more understanding on his face beyond it.

"What happened?"

Hearing the question washed the last of the immediate worry out of him and woke up some latent worries instead. He realized he was cradling her but couldn't bring himself to shift it to something more aggressive. He did manage to keep his sentences the right tone though as he flatly remarked:

"You and sleep spells must be every hentai fanboy's wet dream."

She blinked as the meaning sank in and swallowed, brows starting to come down.

"Sleepel." She suddenly looked embarrassed and grimaced. "Sorry."

He shook his head. Her falling asleep when he was around wasn't one of his worries.

Her getting put to sleep when he wasn't around… that was.

The timer in his head went off and a second later, White's inflectionless voice came over his mike.

"Off line."

"Don't talk," he got straight to the point as he looked down at the woman tucked up in his arms. "We're off line. The audience won't hear this conversation. My gamers have a different one we prerecorded playing. You're not recorded so don't open your mouth or it will give away the trick." He bent his head low over her to help hide the fact his lips weren't syncing with the conversation everyone else was hearing. She was watching him with huge eyes and he forced himself not to smirk.

He never went into anything without a trick or two up his sleeve. That White happened to be a hacker – that was just one of them this time around.

"Since I can't imagine them being able to resist putting me in a dress, they're going to have to split us up shortly. You're going to end up at some pimp's den. I want you to be very, very careful." His eyes locked with hers, needing her to see the seriousness of the situation. "One of the producers in this game worked on Battle Royale. He was brought in because the last installment of the game wasn't considered 'gritty' enough. They're going to make this one darker." He tightened his fingers on her where they were curled. "So I want you to be very, very careful about Don Corneo's." He paused. "And about how you change into the dress you're going to wear there."

Her huge eyes blinked at him again in realization. Avatars, among other things, didn't need to change clothes so it probably hadn't even occurred to her yet that everything they did was recorded.

It had occurred to him. Especially in regards to her.

"Fifteen seconds," Black's voice came over his earpiece, sounding tense. It was the first time they'd tried this particular trick.

"White, hack me something that will block sleep spells. Drop it in an enemy we'll find it in."

"There aren't any of those this early in the game," Black hissed. "You're pushing it."

"Glitch it. Just get it to me before we separate."

"Done," White was unphased. "Five seconds."

"Look insulted, Tifa. The recorded conversation was just chalk full of innuendo."

For just a second more, her eyes were huge and fixed on him in shock, and perhaps just a touch of horror. She was a smart girl. She always had been. She'd figure out just how much he was cheating the game. He had to trust her not to report him.

She might, when she had time to think about it, even realize that he must have planned a conversation with her at some point. Unless it didn't occur to her that including sexual innuendo in a conversation precluded the conversation being with anyone else on their team.

Her hand was suddenly planted against his chest, fingers splayed and she was hissing:

"Cloud – " in that tone she used when he'd particularly stepped over a line. Just the sound of it was enough to make his lips curve at their edges.

She had no idea what a turn on that tone of voice was to him.

He let the rumble answer in his throat and shifted the hand that wasn't holding her securely against him to slide up the side of her bare leg again.

He'd always loved her legs. He'd gone to track meets in school just to see her legs…

"All I'm saying," he spoke as if he were continuing a previous conversation. "Is that you must have very talented fingers to be so good with that Steal materia you've equipped."

"Cloud!" It was still a hiss but now it was much more explosively reprimanding and his smile was unrepentant as she wiggled her way out of his arms and to her feet, smoothing down her skirt as she went. He slowly unfolded himself and followed suit, minus the skirt smoothing. HeyYou looked over from his position and made a face.

"You two ready to go or do I havta stick my fingers in my ears and go 'la la la' some more?"

"Fingers," Cloud answered calmly at the same time Tifa huffed:

"We're ready to go."

Hey decided to believe Tifa.

"'Bout time. We're almost there anyway."

"Let's mosey," Cloud commented, taking the lead again, one hand shifting backward to touch the handle of his sword for reassurance.

As he moved passed Tifa though, she gave him a hidden smile. And it was so shy and sweet and soft that it would have broken his heart.

If he'd had any intact pieces of it left.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

She looked around the room and grimaced.

Technically, she knew anything that happened to her in the game, wasn't really happening to her. Her body – her real body – was safely tucked away in the studio with a team of doctors keeping an eye on things. The body she inhabited here was nothing more than computer programs and colored pixels. Just the same way everything around her was really just computer programs and colored pixels. She knew that. She really did.

It didn't serve to stop the shiver that went through her and she wrapped her arms instinctively closer over her stomach.

They'd gotten somebody who didn't have much of a healthy social life to design this corner of Don Corneo's building.

It was bad enough that the walls had been designed to remind everyone of a castle dungeon's walls, all bare, gray stone and dimly lit torches. It was the… implements that were worrying her. There was a fire going in an open fireplace near the wall furthest from the stairs and she stood near it for warmth. Despite knowing better, her eyes kept drifting back to the iron poles hanging on the wall near it. On her first, close inspection, they had looked like branding irons with various sizes of markers. They'd looked, as stupid as it sounded in a pixilated world, as if some of them had been used and not washed off afterward. She knew her mind was just making that up because details like that would be absolutely lost on the audience and so they wouldn't be programmed in.

She still stood on the far side of the fire from them.

That put her near the whips and bondage gear and, again, whoever had designed those was either very inventive or knew far too much about the habit. Some of the things hanging on the walls… Tifa didn't really want to guess at what they were used for.

The mouth gag ball thing looked… chewed on…

She winched and shook out her hands for the fifteenth time, wiggling her fingers to keep them loose.

"Hey, Mace."

"I'm here, Teef. Crap, that's some creepy stuff. What kind of perv designed this room?"

It made her laugh, nervously and just a little, but it was a laugh and it helped.

"Fan boys?"

Over her earpiece Macy chuckled.

"Middle aged fan boys with no women in their lives. Dang, is that a horse tail?"

"Mace – " she warned at the same time Swift calmly answered:

"Yes."

Both of the girls were quiet for a second after that and then, thoughtful, Macy asked:

"I don't want to know what it's for, do I?"

"No," he stated.

"I don't want to know how you know what it's for, do I?"

"No."

"Hmm. Oooo – kay. So, Teef – we're got an online poll going. You think Cloud's going to look hot or disturbing in a dress when he shows?"

It pulled her thoughts away from the table in the center of the room. The leather straps on it were shiny, as if they'd been used a lot and she thought – she thought – from here that it looked like it had stains in the dark wood.

"Um," she pressed her lips together and thought about it. "Disturbing."

"Oh, you just say that because you don't like him."

"She likes him," Swift interjected on a drawl and Tifa felt her cheeks flush. Which was ridiculous.

"I don't – it's not that I like him or I don't. I just think he'll look scary in a dress. That's all," she protested and listened to Macy snicker over the earpiece.

"He's too – he's too male," she tried to explain. "He moves too male to pull a dress off."

"Are we talking hip thrusts?" Macy teased. "Because it's not fair if he's doing that and you're not sharing."

"Mace-" Tifa hissed at her, well aware that their conversations were recorded and sometimes added to the show the audience was watching. She felt red all the way up to the roots of her hair. Because it was far too easy to not just imagine but remember the way he liked to snug his hips against hers.

"He's a teen," she sputtered before she could stop herself and was relieved to hear Macy stop snickering.

"What?"

"He's a teen," Tifa dismissed the absent male with a shake of her head. "Come on, look at the way he moves. It's… loose. Like a teenage boy. He slouches a lot. And he leads with his hips, not his shoulders. Lower center of gravity. He's a teen," she summarized and there was a long pause on the other end. Finally Swift whistled.

"Damn. I think you're right."

Tifa couldn't stop her smug smile. The producers had tried to keep all the 'actors' away from and unaware of each other. They said it helped them react to each other's avatars more purely. She'd only run into Bruce on accident and the producers had decided to let them train together because the other actor was having a hard time adjusting to being four legged and all the balance problems that went with it. Tifa, having to run martial arts training programs, seemed the natural partner to run through his with him as well.

She wished he were here. She liked Bruce.

"What if he's a she?" Macy suddenly realized. It wouldn't be the first time the show had decided to throw an unexpected actor in to add to the surprises of the game. The audience loved speculating over that kind of stuff.

"There's hardly any hip action side to side in the way he moves. And – he's awfully aggressive to be female," Tifa remarked dryly. Aware that there were aggressive women out there, and even aggressive women that were interested in other women, but still…

"Head's up," Swift's voice came sharply over the mike and Tifa's head snapped up to focus on the stairs. There were footsteps coming down them and the sound echoed in the hollow room. She felt tension shiver down her spine. The steps sounded… they sounded foreboding. Which was stupid because footsteps couldn't have emotions or motivation. She still shook her hands out again, and clenched her fingers experimentally several times. It certainly _didn't_ sound like the click of high heels she expected to hear when the rest of her team arrived.

Her eyes narrowed when several guys slowly came into view.

She recognized them, kind of. They were fill-in characters, not really important to the plot or the story. The programmers had given them enough of a solid form to look human but the details were missing. The audience wouldn't notice but looking directly at them on the same level as they were, Tifa could always tell. The eyes were vacant and the faces were all the same shape and design. They were all bald and largely muscled and they all had the same voice when they talked. In her head she called them mannequins. These particular mannequins were some of Corneo's thugs that had been here when she arrived. They'd leered and made the expected comments but they'd kept their hands to themselves. As disgusting as it was, as long as she might end up Corneo's 'treat' for the night, the rest of the goons had to keep their hands to themselves.

Even though anything that happened to this avatar of hers wasn't supposed to affect her in the 'real world', she already knew about the psychological studies that were going on. The game wasn't allowed to traumatize the actors – too much. Potential lawsuits and whatnot…

Knowing that with the front of her head didn't stop the adrenaline from starting to trickle through her veins and it certainly didn't slow down her heart rate or the way her hands clenched.

"Easy, Teef," Swift's mellow voice came over the mike, soothing. "They're probably just here to – "

And then she caught a glimmer of colored light from one of the mannequins hands and her world suddenly went spinning.

"Crap," it came out in a shaken burst and she stumbled backward, hands going defensively in front of her.

"Teef? Teef? What's going on?" Swift's voice sounded in her ear and she shook her head. The world kept spinning and she heard, somewhere above and nearby, low throated laughter. Desperate, she blinked, trying to clear her eyes but things kept spinning and what little she could make out was in threes. Vertigo rushed through her and she felt vaguely nauseated.

"Can't – everything's spinning," she said it for her gamers benefit and was proud she managed to keep her voice sounding sensible instead of the panic she felt rising in her chest. Nearby a thick voice called her a little girl and she felt a giant hand that felt more like a paw close over her elbow.

"Teef," Swift's voice was in her ear and it was calm. "Just like we practiced. Right spin. Ankle level with your heel."

They'd logged hours, so many that she'd lost track, in simulated training sessions together and she reacted to his instructions now instinctively. Without a thought, she dropped low, planting a hand, and spun, sweeping out with her leg. The heel of her foot connected with something solid and the hand on her lost its grip as something cracked. Nearby something went down with a heavy sounding thud.

Tifa put her hand over her mouth and swallowed back the nausea in her throat. Somewhere in the background, Macy was yelling faintly:

"Confusion? Where did thugs get 'confusion' materia? What the hell is going on?"

Which basically meant that she was scrolling through both the internal computer and external links.

"On your feet, babe," Swift's usually mellow voice was aware but it wasn't sharp with panic and Tifa stumbled to her feet, vaguely orientating herself from the glow of the three fireplaces to her right.

"Loose the heels," Swift instructed and she did. "Here they come," he warned. "Remember, just like we practiced. Close your eyes and we'll kick some ass. Ready?"

She closed her eyes and nodded, lips pressed together hard. It was all she had time for before Swift was barking out:

"Right jab - stomach!"

Her fist connected with something solid and knocked it backward.

She'd run track for most of her school years and even after she'd gone on to university, she'd still run. She loved the feeling it gave her, the sync it gave her with her body. Learning to fight in the simulations – which was more than the simple boxing style fists her father had taught her so long ago – it was just an extension of the running. It was feeling your body and knowing what it could do and how to move it. The programs enhanced everything she did and she'd have to remember, when she got back to her real life at the end of this contest, that her fists couldn't really throw a grown man backward with a blow.

In the computer game though – she could. And she did.

In her ear, Swift barked instructions calmly. They'd done this a million times before. It was normal, as strange as that sounded, and the panic lightened in her stomach as she fell into the routine of motions, hardly feeling the way her own muscles twinged as she broke grapple holds or didn't manage to entirely dodge blows. Swift walked her calmly through, step by step, and her faith in his ability to was absolute.

In the back of her mind what was bothering her most though was that the thugs weren't trying to hit her. They were trying to restrain her. Somehow, to her, that felt much more threatening than possible physical violence.

So she broke holds and returned fists, jabs and kicks. She wanted to ask how many of them there were but she didn't dare break Swift's staccato instructions. Even when he stuttered for a moment, she was already in the flow of fighting and continued on, breaking the hold on her elbow and throwing the fist that would connect with throat or jaw depending on her opponent's height. It was blocked and then caught and for several eternal seconds the pattern repeated of grapple, escape, block. The determination to hurt the person she was fighting with overrode the sounds of Swift's voice and it took her a moment to realize he was yelling:

"Babe! Babe, stop it! He's on our side." It startled her and her fist lashed out without thought, suddenly catching something hard that drew a grunt. A hand closed on her wrist though and pulled her close. Over the sound of Swift's voice, she heard a lower one repeating:

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm here. It's me. I'm here."

A sound caught in her throat and she wasn't sure whether it was a laugh or a sob but she stopped struggling and felt herself drawn into the incredible safety of a sheltering, warm, solid body. She shouldn't – but she'd already been pressed close to that body too often not to recognize it.

"Cloud – "

"That's right," arms wrapped tighter around her and her nose was pressed into stiff fabric. "It's me. I'm here."

More than any other words, those told her she was safe and she pressed in closer with another muffled sound. Against her, she felt his chest heave in an exhale and she might have been wrong but it felt as if he lowered his face into her hair. She knew she shouldn't but she stole the moment anyway, soaking in the safe feeling. The surprisingly clean feeling. A sudden thought sparked and she mumbled:

"I hit you," not sure whether she should be horrified or pleased. He grunted against her but it sounded almost like a chuckle.

"You've got a really nasty right hook."

She paused.

"I'm not sorry," she told him. Against her hair, he rumbled a laugh.

"That's my girl," his voice was so quiet she almost didn't hear it.

A throat cleared behind her and a woman's voice said:

"Tifa?"

"Aerith," Cloud's voice was a low rumble.

"No. I'm okay," with an effort, Tifa pulled herself together. Ridiculous. This was a game and she would be fighting enemies in the game. Sometimes on her own. It was ridiculous that she'd let this fight shake her up. It was just a programmed fight in the game and she'd let herself forget that and think it was real. Characters got 'killed' and 'withdrawn' from the game if their ratings weren't high enough, even 'main' characters. She couldn't fall apart over a battle. Cloud's arms let her go but his body didn't move away from hers. She felt his fingers tip her chin upward toward him.

"What's going on?" his voice had gone back to gruff and flat. "Why were you fighting with your eyes closed?"

She opened them. Behind him the room wasn't spinning anymore but she still saw three pairs of ocean and lightning blue eyes in front of her.

"I got hit with a confusion spell," she was proud of the calm way it kept coming out when she said it. The producers had explained the different spells and effects they'd be hit with during the course of the game. They hadn't done 'confusion' justice at all. She shut her eyes again. "It's wearing off. Just… it made the room spin and I'm still seeing multiples of everything. I had to close my eyes."

For a long, strange moment, he didn't answer and she squinted an eye open to see his brows down and his eyes looking inward. There was only one of him if she kept her eye squinted. Finally he looked back at her.

"Confusion." His tone of voice indicated what he thought of that and she shut her eye and nodded. At least she wasn't the only one that thought it was a dirty trick to pull.

"But – we were just supposed to arrive," the other woman's voice clarified. "Why would they set up a battle for Tifa? Part of what everyone is waiting for is her reaction to you in a dress."

He made a low sound in his throat that sounded distinctly aggravated and Tifa squinted an eye open again.

"You're in a dress?"

The aggravated sound repeated itself. It made her smile smugly and she shut her eye.

"Bet you look scary."

"I'd better," grated out between his teeth.

"Actually it looks kinda like girl on girl action from here," Swift's voice came over the hidden mike in her ear now that the actors had cleared things up between themselves. Tifa muffled a laugh and Cloud's voice very distinctly told her:

"Don't."

"He looks cute," Aerith's voice chirped up from behind them. "Don't you, Miss Cloud?"

Near her ear, almost too soft to be heard, she heard him mutter:

"It's probably considered bad sportsmanship if I kill one of my teammates. Isn't it?"

She found herself stifling laughter again and realized, at some point, she'd leaned back into the shelter of his body. His arm was around her again too.

She risked opening her eyes and saw that the confusion had finally faded. The room was pretty much as she remembered it except for the bodies of the fallen thugs. Cloud's oversized sword was in his other hand and its tip was buried in the floor. It had red streaks on it.

"Did you do the 'group room'?" she asked with a small smile and he shot her a look that indicated she might be the next on his list of teammates to kill. His answer was a succinct:

"No."

"He wouldn't get the energy drink from the pay by the hour Love Hotel either."

A woman moved into view as she said it and Tifa took her in.

Aerith Gainsborough. Healer and savior of Gaia. Last of the Ancients. Vital part of the storyline and one of the only survivors from the last game.

Competition for Cloud's heart – if Tifa had been interested in that kind of thing. Which she wasn't.

The woman was breathtakingly beautiful though with wide, fresh green eyes and hair that spiraled perfectly around her heart shaped face. Tifa told herself she would have felt the twinge of envy just for those looks alone. The other woman offered a pale hand and the bracelets at her wrist jingled like silver bells.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Aerith."

Even though she was in an avatar, which meant there was no sweat or dirt on her, Tifa still felt tarnished next to the other woman. She smoothed down her hair, self-consciously and shook the offered hand.

"Tifa," she stated the unnecessary.

Cloud stepped away from her and she forced herself not to shiver at the way the room's cold suddenly hit her again.

"Cloud's told me a lot about you," Aerith beamed and Tifa both vaguely remembered the conversation they were supposed to be having and wondered how anyone would believe that the taciturn Cloud would rattle on about anything, much less anyone specific.

"Oh," Tifa began, "I'm sure he – "

"What are you doing?!" Aerith suddenly interrupted, hands going to her lips as she stared passed her in horror at Cloud.

"What?" he looked up from where he was pulling off the dress he'd been wearing, not pausing in his motions that seemed as intent on tearing the dress as taking it off. Underneath he was still wearing his uniform, minus the shoulder plate. If he'd had a wig on, it was already gone.

"You can't do that!" Aerith sputtered in anger. "There have to be three of us to visit the Don!"

"Fuck that," Cloud had the dress off and he balled it up and tossed it in the fireplace. "We'll go see the Don this way."

"We can't," Aerith wailed. "How can he choose one of us? This will change everything!"

"Look," Cloud lifted his sword from where it was standing and twirled it absently before slapping it onto his back. The twirl sent drops of dark liquid flicking clear of the blade. "I agreed to wear a dress so we wouldn't alert the thugs and they wouldn't do anything to Tifa before we could get to her." Not gently, he thumped one of the bodies on the ground with the toe of his boot. "Well, I'm not worried about the thugs being alerted anymore, Tifa is here with us and safe, and I'm pretty pissed off that some pimp just tried to run a bad hentai scenario involving Tifa, faceless stand-ins and a confusion spell. I'm not feeling very subtle right now." His voice was a low, steel inflected rumble.

It was also the longest monologue she'd heard from him up to this point.

"But, but – "Aerith wrung her hands. "What if he doesn't tell us what we came here to find out?"

Cloud's narrowed eyes swept over Tifa and then rose to the stairs leading upward. Without waiting to see if they'd follow he started up them.

"He will. And he'd better hope I only _threaten_ to cut them off."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Something was bothering him and it wasn't the fact that for story continuity they'd had to let the slimy fat man go.

Though that did grate against his bones.

No, it was something else that he couldn't put his finger on and it was nestled at the base of his spine, twinging its vague warning. Something was wrong and he knew it, he just couldn't put his finger on it.

If there was any instinct in the world that alerted you when something you hadn't paid the proper attention to previously was currently circling around to bite you in the ass – this was that feeling.

"Black – " he muttered it as he circled around the Don's desk and picked up the phone.

"Sorry, man. Did you want the da da da thing, cause I didn't think the pimp getting away was a good thing."

"No," he hit the button to transfer to the operator and started to rifle through the drawers in the desk from sheer habit. While the phone's receiver clicked at him, he said:

"Something's off. Can you replay the recent tapes and see if you spot anything?"

"On it," Black's voice was already fading even as he said it and Cloud nodded. The operator came on.

"Seventh Heaven," he instructed and waited to be connected. It was easier for the programmers to make the phones old fashioned and run through an operator than trying to have actual phone numbers for each allocated spot on the game map. Tifa was moving around the room ransacking it and Aerith was looking very disapproving and standing in the center of it with her arms crossed.

All because the Don hadn't been given the chance to grope, oogle or attempt a rape on one of them thanks to Cloud's more direct approach. They were also therefore in the office instead of the sewer for the same reason.

Well, he was about to piss her off some more.

"-the FUCK!?" HeyYou's voice squawked over the phone.

"Hey," it was as much name as greeting. "ShinRa's going to drop the Plate on Sector Seven. Get Jessie to take Marlene to the diner in Wall Market and wait for me there. You'd better take Biggs and Wedge and head to the Pillar." As an afterthought, realizing, belatedly, that he was supposed to be thinking of randomly programmed pixels as real people, he added: "And warn as many others as you can to get out of the area."

"the fuck?" HeyYou sounded puzzled and Cloud hung up the phone to find Aerith nearby. He'd only heard of it before but he'd definitely call their current color 'witch-fire'.

"_I'm_ supposed to rescue Marlene!" she corrected him. "Jessie's supposed to be die."

He grunted and headed for the back room Corneo was bound to have his 'love nest' in. Aerith came close behind him and she caught his arm just as the smell of cheap perfume hit him. The room reeked of it and for a minute it was almost overwhelmingly sickening. The sensation threw him slightly because he hadn't been expecting it. Blinking, he shook his head and felt Aerith's hands on his upper arms. Looking down at her, he wondered when she'd moved to stand in front of him.

"I'm supposed to rescue Marlene," she sounded a little lost and very confused. "Cloud… Please."

He opened his mouth to answer and could smell the sex under the perfume coming from the large bed in the center of the room. He had to clear his throat at how oily the air felt before he could answer.

"I like Jessie." The statement came out rough sounding.

In front of him, green eyes got wide and she stepped closer to him to peer up at his face.

"You – like Jessie? Or you – like-like Jessie?"

He cleared his throat again and it helped clear the fumes out of his head.

"I like Jessie. The rules say we all live or die depending on our choices, not the original game. 'No guarantees'. I'm giving Jessie a hand."

"But," she was almost against him she was so nervous. "What about me?"

He put his hand on her arm and gently moved her to the side.

"You're going back outside and meeting them at the diner. The story can get back on track from there."

"Alone?" she asked and he didn't look from where he was striding around to the other end of the bed to collect a healing potion marker.

"Yes."

"But – why aren't you coming with me? What about Tifa?"

"We're going to Sector Seven and trying to stop the Plate from falling." He gestured with his hand for her to move back to the doorway and she did, looking entirely lost. He felt a twinge of guilt for that. He threw the lever that opened up the trap door that led to the sewers. Tifa appeared at Aerith's shoulder as the hollow thud of the dropping panels echoed up from the newly revealed hole in the floor. She was in her regular fighting uniform. He frowned at her.

"You changed clothes and you didn't call me?"

She gave him a look, narrow eyes and pressed lips. She really had to stop doing that, or else he had to stop intentionally instigating it. Otherwise, someone – him – was going to do something someone else – possibly both of them – would regret. She folded her arms in front of her.

"I had my outfit on underneath the dress."

Her work boots had probably come from the mysterious ether they pulled all their gear out of.

"I still could have helped."

"You're not what I consider 'helpful'," she informed him.

"But – it's dangerous out there for a girl on her own," Aerith protested and it drew Cloud's attention back to the situation. He frowned because… maybe it was. He remembered that he'd left her in front of the Honey Bee however without her protest. And he also remembered the distinctly disturbing sight of men actually crawling on the ground in front of her when he'd come back out.

In his past, men only crawled when they were bleeding out…

"Go back into the office. Lock the door. Call Mukki from the Honey Bee and tell him," he had to clamp down on the shudder. "That the spiky haired blond guy would consider it a personal favor if he'd come and escort you to the diner."

Aerith put her hands behind her back and coyly looked at him.

"Oh…? Is it 'personal', Miss Cloud?"

"No," his voice was flat. "But I want you to be safe."

He'd deal with Mukki later if he had to.

God – he hoped not.

Aerith gave him a beatific smile and disappeared through the doorway.

"She's so cute," Black commented.

"This game would go much faster if she were already dead," White stated calmly and Cloud listened to what sounded like a chair crashing over before the connection was cut.

Black did have a tendency to lean back in his seat.

Tifa was looking back the way Aerith had gone and he came to a stop on the opposite side of the open trap door from her.

"You ready?" he asked and she looked back at him and then down the hole. The smell coming up from it wasn't the most pleasant but he preferred it to the reeking bed that was starting to give him a headache with its overwhelming smell.

"Why are we going down there?" she asked and he chuckled. He noticed she didn't tell him 'no'.

"Fastest way to get to Sector Seven."

She nodded and then gave him a look.

"Why – " she hesitated and it caught his attention. He focused entirely on her. Not that he minded that in the least. Her lips pressed together. "Why am I coming and Aerith isn't?"

Because I can't keep an eye on you if I leave you behind, he thought. Coming in on her fighting hentai thugs earlier… it had been a little too real. It had made the ice closing around his chest a little too familiar. Video game extension or not – no, he'd rather keep her near him than send her somewhere he couldn't watch over her.

"Because she doesn't flash me when she fights," he smirked instead and watched her shoot him an unfriendly look.

"How's your jaw?" she asked. His lips tugged up in a half-smile. He touched the tender spot on his face lightly.

"Okay, I'll take you along for your mean right hook too," he conceded.

Her triumphant grin was beautiful and he had to resist the urge to respond to it. Instead he ducked his head to look at the hole in front of his boots and stated:

"I'll go down first. When I whistle, it's your turn."

"No," she said it slowly. "I'll go first."

He looked back at her.

"We have no idea how far down that is. My body is built to absorb a lot more damage than yours is. I'll go first and catch you if it's too deep for you to land safely on your own."

"I'm in a skirt," she reminded him, voice calm but the blush still stole over her cheeks. "So I'd better go first."

Cloud frowned. His avatar didn't care if she was embarrassed. This was about practicality and her risking a broken leg – or whatever that amounted to in the game – wasn't an option. That he might get a look up her skirt – that was just bonus. As much as he enjoyed flirting – or whatever it was called – the key to his persona right now was 'practical'. Letting her jump first – wasn't.

With a grunt, he leapt the distance to her side of the floor. Without a word, he scooped her up in his arms.

She had time to protest:

"Cloud – "

and then he was jumping down the hole.

She made a noise like a mouse getting stepped on as they fell.

His boots splashed down into something that wasn't as liquid as it should be and as disgusting as that was, he also realized it would help cushion his fall. He'd already had his knees flexed the way he'd had drilled into him in jump school and the shock of the landing was absorbed up through his bent legs. He was aware of liquid splashing upward around him and a rancid smell that still wasn't anywhere near as overwhelming as the Don's bedroom. The tread on his boots kept him from slipping and he slowly straightened, lifting his head from where he'd automatically tucked it down near Tifa's to look at their surroundings.

It was a sewer all right. As sewers went though this one had a nice high ceiling and plenty of space between the walls. It even looked surprisingly clean. Comparatively.

Tifa lifted her head from where she'd buried it against his chest and looked around as well. She didn't, he noticed, unwind her arms from their death grip around his shoulders. He could feel her fingers digging pleasantly into the fabric of his shirt against his back.

She smelled good.

Something flowery without being perfumy. Like – some kind of wildflower maybe. Like water lilies. Not that he was sure he even knew what water lilies smelled like but he thought they'd be liquid and clean and softly sweet. He also wondered who'd thought to add a scent to her avatar.

"Cloud – "

He made a humming noise in his throat and she shifted a little in his arms.

"You can put me down now…"

It occurred to him that he'd lost track of everything around him and that he wasn't sure how long he'd done it. Tifa was looking up at him a bit worriedly and that meant, however long he'd been spacing over her smell, it had been long enough for her to notice. He headed for the 'sidewalk', glad he was in avatar form and no one had thought how uncomfortable sewage down the rims of boots and soaking through your socks felt. Sometimes – often times – he was glad the programmers seemed to forget details like that.

She was watching him a little too closely, surprisingly content to stay in his arms while he carried her. And, while he _liked_ having her in his arms, that meant she was distracted with something else. The way she was looking at him, all low eyebrows and thoughtful eyes, indicated she was thinking about him.

Not good.

"Tifa," he stepped up onto the relatively sanitary concrete that ran on either side of the sewage. "I've been thinking about our promise."

"Oh?"

He nodded as he strode along.

"Yeah. You know how you asked me to come if you were ever in a bind?" In his arms, she went very still, waiting with wary eyes.

She always had been smart.

"Weren't you awfully young to be that kinky already?"

"Cloud!" her outrage was worth the fact that she hit him hard enough in the shoulder that he had to set her down or risk dropping her.

"Crap! That was BAD!" Black was laughing hard enough to sound like he was in pain. Cloud coughed. It _had_ been bad. He was really running out of ideas. It had entirely distracted her though. Currently stalking along ahead of him, Tifa was shaking her head and muttering, probably to her own gamers. If her reactions weren't so damn cute....

Next it was going to be chocobo riding jokes and he just wasn't sure he could deliver those with any kind of a straight face.

It was a bit of a relief really, when the monster finally showed up.

It was also a relief that, while they were regularly being swamped by waves of sewage, none of it seemed to stay on them.

Cloud dodged a meaty paw and Tifa ducked under the missed swing, leather-clad fists pounded into the beast. The other paw came around and even though she dodged back it was going to hit someone. Cloud put himself in the way and absorbed most of the blow on the flat of his sword. In his ear, Cloud heard White's calm:

"Limit break."

"Cross-slash," Cloud chose and felt the hum through the bones of his arms as it activated. Something that felt like ants ran over his skin too and green light glinted across it as well. Tifa had cast Cure on him.

Which meant she was paying more attention to his condition than he was.

With a grunt of acknowledgement he charged forward and gold light followed the path of his sword. The beast in front of them shuddered and faded out, leaving a temporary bright red afterglow. Other than the sounds of their breathing and the trickle of water, there was nothing else. Cloud swung his blade and it glinted in the dull light from the mesh encased bulbs fasten on the walls before it slapped down against his back. Something tickled at the back of his mind.

"Uh – " Black made an unsure sound in that exact moment. Cloud grunted in answer as he felt ants and green light across his skin again.

"So – ," Black's voice was careful sounding in his earpiece. "There were all those thugs in Cornero's basement, right?"

"Right," Cloud turned his head to give Tifa a careful once over. She looked a bit bruised but otherwise healed and whole. Avatars were apparently made of Teflon. She gave him a nod and they both broke into a trot in the direction that led out. Cloud let her take point.

"And, after you both killed them, they were all bodies, right?"

Cloud made a listening sound as his eyes scanned the murky passage ahead.

"But there aren't supposed to be bodies afterward. At least, there haven't been before or after that point."

For a long minute, the implication took its time sinking in. Over his mike he actually heard White swear a single, low, sibilant word.

"Those thugs weren't part of the game," his voice came out gruffer than he'd expected and a long moment of silence followed that. "They left blood on my sword. I could – smell blood."

Except he was so used to smelling blood that, in an appropriate situation like that, it hadn't even occurred to him that he hadn't previously in his avatar. Thinking back, his sense of smell was becoming strangely acute in sporadic bursts.

"What's the official game website say about the attack?"

"Already checked," Black answered. "They say it's part of the game. A 'new twist on the beloved plot'." He paused. "I say it's bull shit and they didn't know it was coming."

Very low, White voiced what they were all thinking.

"Apparently, we are not the only ones altering this game."


	5. Chapter 5

_okay, I'm out of town again for all of next week so this is your update for a while. Bit of gore, bit of tension, and there's a threatened monologue in there too ;) Hope it's fun._

Chapter 5:_  
_

He caught her hand and pulled her into the save point before she had time to think about it.

The 'save points' were a new invention for the game. It gave the actors a chance to stop, catch their breath, reassess their gear and heal without risking attack. They were also actual save points. In the game dead was dead and your characters weren't allowed to come back and try again. Usually. But on the given chance that an entire team got killed, or a particularly popular character for that matter, the save points were allowed to be activated and the game restarted from that point. The catch was that it was only allowed to happen three times in the entire game and it was the audience, not the actors, that were allowed to make the decision to use it or not. The designers wanted the audience to participate and this was one of the surest ways to lure them into it. It was also one of the reasons being an interesting character was so important. If the audience didn't care when you died, you woke up in your tube in your real body and it was game over for you.

No going back. No chance of winning the prize money.

Given the fact they were about to go into a heavy firefight that included Turks and a giant collapsing plate, Tifa didn't think stopping at the save point was a bad idea and so when Cloud jerked her into the glowing pillar of colored light, she didn't protest.

What she did protest was the way he pulled her flush up against him and wrapped both arms tightly around her to keep her that way.

"Cloud – "

"Tent," he ignored her protest and triggered the program that would boost their vitality and magic points back up to full. She felt a strange tingling feeling and the stinging across the back of one of her shoulders stopped. It made her relax. Besides, it felt good being in Cloud's arms. Especially after the dungeon at Corneo's, it felt… safe. Somehow… she'd felt safe around him from the very start – which didn't make sense given his penchant for pawing her.

Though… thinking about it… he never took advantage of her when he had the chance…

In fact, his 'pawing' seemed to be refrained to areas of her body that were already exposed anyway…

"Something's wrong with game."

"Hm?" she lifted her face from where she'd let it drift forward to rest against his shoulder and he grunted.

"Those thugs at Corneo's – they were a different program than the one that's supposed to be running."

"The producers told us there would be new parts to the game," she protested but she was protesting the sick feeling settling into the pit of her stomach. He made a noise and his arms on her shifted, tucking her closer.

"Tifa… they bled."

"They…" Half blind with a confusion spell, she hadn't noticed. Except… her hands had been sticky afterward. She'd noticed it but when they'd stepped out of the dungeon, she'd looked and her hands had been clean. They hadn't felt sticky after the dungeon either now that she thought about it. She shuffled a little closer to Cloud and only noticed she'd done it after the fact. His arms tightened. She stepped back and, reluctant, his arms let her do that too.

She couldn't be cozying up to a perv. He'd get entirely the wrong idea about what kind of girl she was. And he pushed himself on her already without encouragement. If she encouraged him, he'd probably –

What?

Show up when she was in trouble? Keep her safe while she was out thanks to a sleep spell? Distract Biggs so that he spent more time glaring at the blond then staring at her chest? Say things that made her flustered, confused and blushing? Make her feel a little feverish and melty at the worse possible times?

No. There was a reason she wasn't single anymore. It hadn't been because of Cloud – but he was a darn good reason to remember the fact.

"Mace?" she asked and her gamer's voice came back.

"Heard it. Swift started running checks the second Hawtness said it."

"Mace – "

"What?" her friend asked. "He became Hawtness as of the second he came steaming in and trounced pervy pimp wannabes."

"'ey!" Swift's voice came over the mike. "Our gal was doing a kicktastic job bouncing thugs all on her own."

Macey huffed.

"I know that. Doesn't mean Hawtness showing up wasn't still appreciated."

"One of my gamers is already talking to the producers," Cloud was standing near her again, eyes distant as he listened to things in his own ear. He scowled and it wasn't exactly a reassuring look. Blue electric glinted from the narrowed eyes.

"Big Wigs are pretending nothing's wrong." His eyes focused and lost some, though not all, of their danger. "Which means they're scrambling to cover and they'll figure it out eventually but until then we watch our own backs."

Tifa met his eyes and nodded. She was braced for his crack about the shape of her backside and his willingness to watch it – and yet, she felt immensely relieved to think she wasn't in this situation alone – and that Cloud was the one in it with her.

If the game really had gotten a stray program in it… who was to say there weren't more?

"Come on," his arm hooked around her waist and he pulled her out of the column of light, surprising her when he didn't seem to realize he should have tossed in an innuendo. "We grab everyone from our team we can and we stick together."

She made the agreeing noise and nodded. Even after his arm left her she stayed near his shoulder, trotting along next to his own quickened pace.

"Mace?"

"I'm here, girl. Swift's going over the computer codes. Damn, we should have caught that. I'm really sorry."

"Yeah, sorry for being fuck-ups," Swift added. "'Cause I shoulda caught that. I knew they weren't fighting the way the guards in the reactors had."

Tifa shook her head. If it was anyone's fault for not noticing sooner, it was hers. _She _actually knew that the game was already being actively hacked. Though apparently Cloud's gamers weren't the only ones doing it anymore.

"Look, it's nobody's fault. It wasn't supposed to happen. It seems to have anyway. At least we found out before anyone got hurt, right?"

There was silence on the other end.

"Right?" she asked a little bit more worried now.

"-ight. Damn it! What's wrong with these mikes?" Macy's voice sounded in her ear but it sounded faint and tinny.

"Heads up!" Cloud's firm voice cut in on her thought and she realized that they were in front of the stairs leading up the giant pillar that helped support the upper Plate. For a minute – it took her breath away.

It was so huge.

And then she saw the flash of gunfire on the iron stairwell further up and –

"Move!" Cloud caught her by her waist and jerked. He spun her to the far side of him – but she still saw the body fall passed.

The sound of the impact made her stomach heave and she suspected, game or not, she'd hear it in those moments just before she fell asleep for a long time to come.

"Wedge!" she pulled away from Cloud and landed on her knees next to the other man. They hadn't known each other well but he'd been friendly and had looked her in the eye when he'd talked to her. Now his body was lying awkwardly, limbs bent at angles they should never have been in naturally and she noticed there was a horrible smell starting to come from him.

"Burst organs," Cloud's voice sounded choked and he had a hand over his mouth and noise. "But damn, it's stronger than usual."

It seemed rude to acknowledge the smell and so Tifa turned back to Wedge. His eyes were still open and one of them was focused on her.

"It's all right," she assured him. "I have Cure. We'll have you back in no time."

"…no…" there was a bubble in his voice and the words sounded like thick syrup but it was distinctive. "A good death. Didn't run like Biggs. Want to go this way instead… instead of a monster or… something stupid later on."

"But I have Cure!" she flicked her wrist to show it embedded on the back of her glove, as if that would convince him. One edge of his mouth twitched.

"Always liked you… in the game. Cuter… than Aeris." The lips twitched upward again. "Gonna go home and… vote for you."

"Wedge…" she was surprised to realize she felt like crying. Cloud grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet. It seemed heartless and she glared at him.

"If Biggs pulled a runner, that means Hey is up there by himself. No guarantees in the game. We've got to get to him before the Turks show or he runs out of potions. Especially if things aren't going according to the game plan."

He didn't try to haul her up the stairs. He just took off up them on his own. He was right though and while she couldn't help Wedge, Barret was still up there and him she could do something about. It was a bitter taste in her mouth abandoning Wedge before the end – but Cloud was right.

She didn't have to like it but he was right.

She tore up the iron steps close on Cloud's heels.

It wasn't a clear shot up. They kept finding their way blocked by soldiers with propellers for a hand and Tifa wasn't even sure how that was supposed to work. Cloud was methodical though. A burst of lightning fried the propellers and his sword follow up after her pummeling attack usually ended the enemy in a blur of fading red.

It seemed almost… gamish compared to the solidity of Wedge's death below.

A little the way Corneo had seemed gamish after the thugs in the basement…?

"Mace?"

For the first time in the game she was feeling the activity and she didn't have a lot of air to spare but she panted her gamer's name anyway.

There was no answer.

"Macy?" she tried it again, grabbing a railing to make the turn easier as she charged up the stairwell. In front of her Cloud didn't even seem to be breathing hard and she resented that with the kind of mild resentment that you reserved for faceless lottery winners.

"Macy? Swift?"

She was just getting ready to use the words that triggered the emergency link that went straight to the programmers monitoring the game, when the mike in her ear crackled.

"-fa! Tifa?! Can you hear us?"

It was Macy's voice and Tifa almost sobbed in relief. Things were moving too fast and having something familiar and 'normal' to hear was more of a relief than she'd thought it would be.

"I'm here. Wedge is dead."

"We saw," Swift's voice came in a bit clearer than Macy's but it still had a tinny echo to it. "Communication's giving us shit though. Programmers are saying it's a bug in the system and they're working it out. Meantime, we keep cuttin' in and out with you."

Ahead of her, Cloud swore, a spat out single syllable, but since he didn't pause or break in his run, she guessed he was talking to his own gamers.

"I should worry," Tifa clarified. "Shouldn't I?"

"Oh, no, I'm sure – "

"Yeah. Worry," Swift interrupted Macy. "But not too much. Things go too crazy, me and Mace will march down to the room they've got you in and wake you up ourselves." He paused. "Unless winnin' the game's more important."

Tifa paused. She had to pause. Finally, even her steps temporarily slowing, she nodded.

"All right. If – if you two think it's important enough to pull me out, I trust you."

"Good gal," Swift's approval came through accompanied by static. "An' don't worry – we'll – "

His voice cut out and moments later so did the hiss of static. Tifa frowned – and then pounded up the stairs to catch up to Cloud. They finished the last rush onto the final platform in time to find Barret firing at a circling helicopter and yelling at the top of his impressive lungs.

"Barret!" she called but it wasn't until Cloud yelled:

"Hey You!" that the other player turned around, gun falling silent for a moment.

"Cloud! Tifa!" He looked relieved. Then he looked angry. "That carebear Biggs took off. Said he wasn't dyin' today. I think Wedge did though."

"He did," Tifa was panting as she stopped next to him and looked around the platform. Cloud swung the sword across his back loose.

"Status?" he asked with that amazing calm voice of his and Barret huffed.

"Nicks and dings. I'm outta potions though. Damn mobs."

"Tifa," Cloud caught her wrist and drew her closer. "Cast a quick heal on the three of us. And we need to get between the computer that triggers the explosions and the Turk this time."

"Man, I can't get Puck and Song on the ear mike," Barret complained as they trotted over to the machine. The computer set in a protected curve of the pillar drew both his attention – and his scorn.

"Whadda piece of shit! An' you mean to tell me one button on that dinosaur is all it takes. What if some suicidal bird flew into it?! What kinda design idea is that? It ain't even got a cover over it or nothin'!"

And just like that, a light on the computer monitor flicked on.

"The Fuck?!"

Numbers appeared on the screen. Numbers that started to count down.

"Oh," Tifa's eyes went wider. "That's not good. That's very Not Good."

"Damn it," Cloud just sounded annoyed.

"But – " Barret looked around wildly. "We were supposed to fight Reno. An' what about the helicopter with Aerith in it?"

"Can't see the producers intentionally missing the chance to throw Reno into the mix. He's a fan favorite even if he is pixels." Cloud looked at Tifa as he said it and she felt a little shiver down her spine. Again? Things weren't the way they'd been programmed to be again?

"Just a guess," Cloud clarified. "But we'd better evac. Now."

The computer beeped. It was the kind of beep that indicated bad things were now going to happen.

"Shit!" Barret headed for the railing. Deep within the stone pillar, something made a booming noise, like a huge wave crashing against the side of a cliff. The ground under Tifa's feet dropped a centimeter.

Cloud wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her and in a voice so calm and soft it took a minute to register, he added:

"Shit's probably right. Because I don't see any cables attached for a daring escape."

"Shit!" Barret yelled it from his place nearer the edge. "Where's the wire?"

The second explosion wasn't so muted and the ground shifted alarmingly. Cloud had his eyes narrowed against the sound but his feet were steady and he kept them both on their feet. Tifa didn't even pretend, she just fisted her hands in the fabric of his shirt and hung on. Further up the pillar she saw flames and chunks of the giant rock started to fall.

She wondered if it would hurt when she died. Well, 'died' and then woke up in her real body. She wondered if they'd start the game again once they got it fixed and if they'd let the same teams go again or if they'd start with all new players.

A rope ladder dropped in front of them.

Both of their heads jerked up in surprise to see a helicopter – a Shinra helicopter – hovering overhead. Someone in white leaned out of the door.

"Grab the ladder!" the shout came over an intercom set in the helicopter.

Reaching passed her, Cloud was already reacting before awareness of the new development caught up with her. He hauled the ladder over and braced her hands on one of its rungs. It swayed and jerked alarmingly against her palms and another explosion tore away a huge chunk of the pillar almost next to them.

"Feet on a rung," Cloud's calm voice instructed it in her ear and she did what he said without hesitation. His own hands closed on the rope side of the ladder and as it jerked upward his feet took the next rung down. It bracketed her between him and the ladder, keeping her safe from falling and debris.

"Cloud – "

"Just hang on." His voice was stronger and sharper than it usually was but it was still nowhere close to panic.

"Hey!" he called it over his shoulder as the ladder rose with a jerk but Barret was already barreling over to catch at the last few rungs. Under his added weight, the rope ladder strained and creaked – but it held. Tifa heard what sounded like a chain of explosions and a horrible grinding, groaning sound as if the earth itself was shattering. Against her, Cloud made a low sound in his throat that sounded like pain except she was sure nothing had hit him. Below, Barret was yelling or screaming and it was hard to tell if it was terror or sheer adrenaline.

The ladder jerked suddenly but Cloud's presence kept it from jarring her. She was aware of how cold the wind suddenly felt and that the explosions were growing more distant. The ladder jerked again and began a slow climb upward. Tifa heard voiced above her and saw hands reaching down and she reached up gingerly with one hand to let them catch her. Soon she was being dragged into the already crowded helicopter and she chose to stay on her hands and knees for a minute afterward because she wasn't sure she could have stood if she'd wanted to and even moving to find a seat seemed risky.

She'd almost died.

Fake death or not, her mind seemed to be having a hard time sorting out the difference. She only realized she was trembling when one of Cloud's arms wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her down into an awkward sitting position half on, half against him. His voice in her ear was repeating calmly:

"It's all right. I'm here. I'm here now. It's all right."

She knotted her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and huddled into that reassurance.

Barret's voice came from nearby and it was back to its full capacity.

"- the hell are you?"

Cloud's head shot up.

"Don't ask him that," he snapped, surprising them all. The blond in the white suit that had already been in the back of the helicopter raised an elegant eyebrow.

"He monologues," Cloud stated. "For hours."

"I do not," the other blond man said, sounding a little put out.

"Barret, Tifa, meet Rufus Shinra."

"Already?" Tifa had to ask, looking curiously at the other man from the safety of Cloud's arms. Rufus wasn't supposed to show up yet. But then… a lot of things seemed to be happening out of order.

"Yes, well," Rufus tossed pale hair off of his forehead. "It's not the way I would have chosen but it seemed expeditious."

"He's the son of the president of the company that runs the game," Cloud elaborated. "He's real. Just like us."

"Really?" It popped out of her mouth before she could stop it and Cloud just grunted. Rufus looked surprised.

"I didn't think anyone knew that."

"I'm full of surprises."

"I will remember that," Rufus answered. "But for now the three of you can consider yourself under arrest. By Shinra of course. There seem to be some glitches in the game and until we can work them out it seems best to have all the players together in one area."

"Shinra holding cells?" Cloud didn't sound friendly about it but he also wasn't trying to swing his sword free in the cramped helicopter. Tifa was glad because it wouldn't have been sensible – and because it would have made her have to move out of his arms. With both sides of the helicopter open to the rushing wind, she thought she'd much rather stay where she was.

It had nothing to do with the fact it felt nice.

"We've already collected the others," Rufus seemed both pleased and bored with the fact. "It's for your own safety. At least until we establish contact with the outside world again."

"Your office was rigged to link into the 'outside' computers," Cloud was starting to sound annoyed. "How can you _not _be in contact with them? And if you're not in contact with them, why hasn't the game's failsafe kicked in and shut this whole simulation down yet?"

"Both very good questions," Rufus sat back in his seat. "I'm sure there are very good answers to them. Once I find them, I'm sure we'll be able to fix these minor problems and continue as scheduled."

Barret voiced what Tifa was thinking.

"Ass," he called the man in white.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

"So, what are you going to do with the money?"

It should have come out of nowhere but somehow, when it was asked, to him, it felt as if it had been waiting to be asked all along. What else were people trapped in holding cells for who knew how long going to talk about but the game that had gotten all of them there? He ignored the question and continued testing the seal along the length of the door with his fingers.

For a minute it sounded as if no one was going to acknowledge that they really were off the camera and then HeyYou of all people spoke up.

"I'm going to start my own video game design company. I've got investors lined up already," he continued as if he'd had to defend this dream before. "And some programmers and graphic artists. Being part of the game will open a lot of doors for me. We just need the start up money."

The silence afterward went a little awkward. It was hard to agree to shift from the mentality that they weren't their avatars, but rather the actors playing the roll. Cloud wasn't sure it was a good idea to shift mentalities.

Of course, he was pretending even when he was pretending to be 'himself' in the game so he didn't suppose it mattered to him.

The chance to remind themselves this was all a game and that they were real… he thought the rest of the group might need that. It might even help focus them on whatever lay ahead.

Tifa spoke up, breaking the cautious silence that had followed Hey's announcement. Cloud didn't pause in his exploration but it was nice to hear her voice so close to him. He didn't know if he'd have been so… accommodating if they had tried to change the part of the game that dictated who went with who in the cells. He liked having her where he could see her if the game had decided to go off the rails.

Hell, he just liked having her where he could see her.

"I wanted to open a cafe with mine," she offered, making life outside of the game safe to talk about. "I teach school now but - I've always thought I'd like a place outside of class where the kids could come and relax. I thought – a snack shop – they can do their homework and hang around with each other in a safe place." She laughed quietly. "I know it sounds an awful lot like the Tifa from the game, doesn't it? But I'd really like the chance to run my own business and try."

There was no air leaking through the seam, no weakness. Cloud gave the door an absent tap with his knuckles and moved over to the single cot. Tifa was sitting on the edge of it and he sat back on it as well, propping his back against the cold of the wall. She didn't try to kick him off even if she did move a little to give him more room. When she did he heard the way the fabric of her skirt shifted over her thighs.

His hearing was getting more acute. Most of his senses were. Whatever was going on back in the programming booth, they were jacking him up pretty strongly.

Sometimes – it was getting so acute it hurt.

Tifa still smelled like whispers of fresh water and flowers though and that was nice. It was tantalizing – which meant it was starting to get distracting because he kept wanting to lean in and follow those wisps all the way back to her skin.

"I just want to buy a place of my own," Jessie's voice came from the other room, flowing through the vent along with the chilled air. She'd been rounded up with everyone else in Rufus' 'collection'. Cloud was glad. He'd been worried she might slip under the radar. Biggs seemed to have managed to. Right now, he thought it might be bad to be off on your own. He couldn't keep an eye on someone if he didn't know where they were. And she'd been much more talkative and friendly since her gamers had been shut off. "I live with my family. Like, my whole family. Aunts and uncles and grandma… I want a place of my own. And to pay off my debts. Guess those kinda come first." She gave a little laugh. "But who am I kidding? The prize money is for the last three survivors. I'm lucky I'm even here now. Oh! Oh, Aerith! What's wrong?"

Cloud turned his head toward the vent and opened his eyes. Jessie was sharing Aerith's holding cell.

"It's my mother," Aerith's voice carried through the vent. It trembled and sounded a little damp. "I need the m-money for her surgery. The doctors say the medicine isn't going to work much longer. And – and she's getting so weak."

Jessie's voice, making soothing sounds, whispered in around the sounds of Aerith trying not to cry and Cloud frowned. He didn't do well with women crying – but he really didn't do well with it when there was nothing he could do about it. Aerith sniffed.

"No. It's okay," her voice was still watery but tears weren't threatening anymore. She sniffed again. "I'm okay. I just – that's why I want to win. For mom. I don't know how considering the plot – " her voice threatened to break again but she steadied it. "But, if I win, that's what I'll do with the money."

"There's no reason you can't win," the voice of Red XIII spoke from the other vent. His Japanese was accented and the fangs he was talking around probably weren't helping. Still, he was understandable. Tifa obviously adored the beast, or rather, the beast's actor. The second she'd heard his voice the first time she'd been over to press against the wall near the vent and say how glad she was to hear him again. Cloud admitted to a twinge of jealousy that was unfounded and unfair. Her eyes didn't light up like that for him.

"The rules of the game are that we all have equal chance to make the last three." Red's rumbling voice, Cloud had to admit, was relaxing. "I'm sure the programmers have taken that possibility into account."

"It's true," Tifa agree. "Don't worry, Aerith. Jessie's still here and she was supposed to die. We'll help each other. You'll see."

It was ridiculously easy to imagine her giving almost the same pep-talk, minus the death reference, to a little kid. Cloud had read her file. White had considered it insulting when he'd asked if the other man could access it. When he'd read she was a schoolteacher, it had hurt - but only because it was so easy to imagine her surrounded by children and smiling.

She'd always been a good teacher…

Other parts of her file had hurt a hell of a lot more to read…

"Thanks," Aerith's voice sounded watery but cheered. Taking a breath Cloud could hear, she asked:

"What about you, Cloud? What are you going to do with the money?"

He folded his arms behind his head and shut his eyes again. Voice flat, he answered:

"I'm going to buy a big house in Hawaii and a cute little maid to take care of it and me and I'm never going to work again."

After the silence got long, Red finally said:

"I'll admit, I was thinking of moving to Australia if I was one of the finalists. To open an import shop. I have family in Hong Kong."

Cloud stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles and the talk shifted to other things and left him alone. In avatar form, he couldn't doze but he put himself mentally there all the same. Something was going to have to happen eventually. Either the game was going to come back online or they were all going to wake up in their tubes. Either way, he'd been taught that you rested when you could because you never knew when you were going to have to get to work and keep going until the job was done.

His side got a poke. He cracked an eye open and looked over at the woman next to him. Her eyebrows were down and her eyes were dark.

She'd scooted closer.

"What are you really going to do with the money?" she asked softly.

It was hard, very hard, not to react to that. She couldn't know him that well, not any more. Especially when she didn't even know it was him. He shut his eye and grunted. The talk through the vents was about what restaurant everyone had dreamed of eating at in celebration of a win.

His side got another poke.

"Well?"

Every time she touched him, it sent little shivers of electric running through the muscles near that spot. That didn't happen when he touched her so it was probably the fact that, for the first time, poking or not, she was intentionally touching him instead. Either way – she needed to stop.

"Tifa – " he made it a rebuke. At least he meant it to be. Instead it came out sounding chiding – which he already knew only instigated her. Sure enough, slender fingers wrapped around his bare arm and gave the mildest of tugs.

"Cloud – " she put the same intonation into his name that he'd just used on hers. Her mimic was, as always, almost perfect.

Damn it…

She had used to do that to him all the time when he was trying to put her off verbally…

Faster than he'd been able to before the program had starting going wrong, he was shifted over and above her. Bracketing her between his body and the wall, arms on either side of her head, inner thighs holding her legs closed and pinned under him, he brought his head down the inch needed to breathe across her lips.

"Come on, Tifa," his voice was coaxing and low. It wasn't hard to sound aroused around her. He couldn't imagine any man managing _not_ to. "There are no cameras on now. Why don't you just admit you want me and we'll see how long you can go without screaming my name and alerting the others…"

Her cheeks were the color of maple leaves in autumn and her lashes hid her downcast eyes. Sitting down, there were still a lot of ways she could hurt him and he was already anticipating some of the more painful ones.

"All right," her voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear it. "I – I have wondered how the avatars work that way."

For a minute he just stared at her, unable to blink his shock was so complete. Under his gaze she stayed deathly still, hardly breathing. He opened his mouth pointlessly and found it was bone dry. Her eyelashes flickered against her cheek.

The breath left him in a rush and he didn't know whether to laugh or strangle her. Instead he nudged the top of his nose against hers.

"Liar." His voice came out throatier than he'd intended but that was her fault. She made a noise in response and her chin ducked while her shoulder shifted. Wine colored eyes rose to his, embarrassed and pleased and shy.

His heart crumbled just a little more.

"So are you," her voice was just as quiet as the smile on her lips.

"No," he assured her, shaking his head and fighting, hard, against smiling. "I wasn't."

The pink hadn't left her cheeks and so he couldn't tell if it got darker or not but she shook her head as well.

"About the money. The house and the girl in Hawaii."

"Oh… that."

She nodded. He shrugged.

"Maybe I'll buy one in the Bahamas instead."

"Cloud – " it was the tone of voice she used that threatened disappointment and he caved for it. He'd always caved for it. With an exhale, he leaned forward, just a little more, just enough to rest his forehead against the wall. Mouth near her ear, he told her:

"I have a friend that needs reconstructive surgery. He'll kill me if he finds out that's what the money's for."

One of her hands rose and her fingers fastened, tentatively, on the fabric of his shirt. He wanted to tell her not to do that. He just couldn't seem to force the words out.

"See?" she'd turned her head and her lips were too dangerously close to his. "I knew you weren't purely a jerk."

It saved her, though she didn't know it, as he snorted a laugh.

"Just mostly," he clarified and heard her smile as she agreed.

"Just mostly."

It was a good time for her to move away from him, to decide to tell him to get back on his own side of the bunk. Because… he was too comfortable with her like this. She was soft and warm and smelled good. It felt… right when she was tucked safely into him. He caught himself wondering if his avatar had a sense of taste and how acute that was. Against his better judgment, his arm on the far side left the wall and his fingers found a strand of her hair.

"Cloud – " the way she said his name was so quiet, he couldn't tell if it was a warning or an invitation. His fingers slipped between the back of her head and the wall, curling to cradle, and he turned his face toward hers.

"Hey, Tifa!"

The shout cut through both of them and he felt her jump.

"Tifa!" It was Jessie's voice even as Aerith asked:

"Cloud? Is everything all right? Cloud!?"

He didn't have to look to know Tifa had gone bright red. He cleared his throat and answered:

"Everything's fine. We're making out. Stop interrupting."

"What!?" Aerith sounded scandalized and Tifa's hands both braced against his chest, palms flat.

"No!" she blurted. "No, we're not." She gave him a glare and he didn't have to fake the smug smile he returned. She pushed. He didn't move.

"We're not. I'm sorry. I just – wasn't paying attention. What – what the question?"

"Well, if you're otherwise occupied -" through the vent, Aerith sounded put out. Before the sound could escape Tifa's open mouth, he calmly asked:

"What? The ratings always go up when there's romance in-game. Especially if it's steamy. If anything should get the programmers falling over themselves to get us hooked back into the cameras it would be a good make out session."

"We are not making out," Tifa emphasized each word firmly and with a push at his chest. He finally gave in and shifted back over to his own side of the cot. She immediately stood up and moved to Aerith's vent. He folded his arms behind his head and smiled at her. It got him a death glare in return.

"Look. I was just distracted. Really. What was the question?"

"No," Aerith's voice came from the other side, sounding muffled. "Cloud's right. The audience loves scandalous, risqué things like that. It's a good way to keep your personal ratings up. Though you could have at least waited until we were back on camera." The last part sounded, to Cloud, sullen. Tifa however actually stamped her foot.

"For the last time, we weren't doing anything."

Jessie's next sentence surprised even him.

"Well," she said slowly. "Perhaps you should."

"Excuse me?!" Tifa squawked it so loudly he wasn't sure if Aerith chimed the same thing or not.

"Perhaps you should," Jessie sounded more sure of herself this time. "Everyone knows about the whole Tifa/Cloud/Aerith triangle, right? It's like – one of the biggest debates in gaming history. I'm willing to bet there are already web sites up supporting one or the other of you with Cloud. If you can both keep everyone guessing than the producers will want to keep you both around longer. They'll rig the game in your favor. Besides," Jessie had apparently gotten braver around him with a wall in the way. "He's crazy hot."

"Thank you?" he guessed.

"Your avatar," Jessie corrected him but she sounded more affectionate than insulting.

"I'll take what I can get," he told her and she laughed.

"Just as much of this game is about strategy as skill, right?" Jessie continued. "If the audience likes you then they'll want to see more of you and the producers will be careful about killing you off. If you two girls are fighting over Cloud then they'll want to keep you around because the audience will tune in every episode just to see what happens next."

"But what about you?" Tifa asked and Cloud shot the back of her head an unfriendly look she wasn't paying enough attention to see. Jessie made a frantic sound.

"Oh no. No, Cloud and I are at best a crack pairing. I mean, the closest he ever comes to giving me a compliment is telling me I look good as a man." The memory made Cloud smile to himself even if Tifa did give him a dirty look over her shoulder. "I'm sure there are some supporters of the two of us as a pair but the main two are you two girls and I'd be killed off painfully and emotionally as a way of appeasement for everyone. I think I'd rather see how far I can get in the game under my own merit, thanks. Though," she paused. "Thank you, Cloud, for making sure I got this far. You didn't have to."

"I like you," he grunted from his spot on the cot.

"But – isn't that devious? Pretending to have emotions for someone when you don't?" Aerith wanted to know. She answered herself before Jessie could. "No. No, I don't think I could do that. I couldn't pretend to love someone I didn't."

Jessie's next question was hesitant.

"Then… you really loved Zack? In the last game – you were really in love with him?"

"…oh," Aerith laughed softly but it didn't sound happy. "Oh – Zack... He was – he was so sweet. And I'd never played an avatar before. He made everything so much easier and more fun."

There was a pause and then it was HeyYou's voice that piped up. Cloud had almost forgotten they were listening as well.

"So you wasn't in love with 'em?"

The huge black man sounded almost disappointed. Cloud cracked his eyes open where he'd let them shut while everyone else talked. Aerith's answer was a long time in coming.

"I… suppose…" her voice was very soft. "I was younger. Love meant something different. But I never met his actor in real life and a lot has changed since then. I kind of wish things could have turned out differently but – I suppose I was in love with him back then but…"

"What did you do with the money?"

He hadn't meant to ask it out loud but it had popped out of his mouth before he could stop it and now that it had, Cloud didn't regret asking. He'd been wondering about it since the conversation in the cells had first turned that way.

"That's right," Hey remembered. "You was one of the only survivors of the last game. So you had to have gotten somma the money, right?"

"Oh, that," Aerith laughed again and it sounded sad. "Mom's heart problem started just after that. While I was in the first game actually but she didn't want anyone to tell me until the game was over. Between the specialists and the trips to the hospital and the medicine and the equipment so she could stay at home with me… it ate all the prize money up." Her voice got weak again. "The doctors say the surgery is her last hope."

Jessie was making soothing noises again but, now that he had the idea, Hey was still thinking.

"What about you, Cloud? You were gaggin' on mako but you lived. What'd you do with the money?"

"I didn't qualify. I wasn't really in the game. They just hired me in to do some voice-overs and I only did it as a favor. My friend was Zack's actor and he roped me into it before he went into the game. I only agreed because I was on vacation and didn't know what else to do with myself if he wasn't going to be around."

As soon as he admitted it, he realized just how lonely that made him sound but luckily Hey wasn't interested in personalities at the moment.

"You too, Tifa? You jus' did voice-overs?"

"No," she walked back over to the vent on his side of the wall. "I was at home, watching the game. Someone else did Tifa's voice. She got pregnant though before this game started. It's one of the reasons I got in. They do a little competition but I don't think I could have beat her if she'd really wanted the part."

And in winning, without knowing it, she'd changed his entire focus, Cloud thought as he watched her from the edges of his eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

_;) going on vacation today but just had to drop this on before I left. Happy belated Easter/Passover, gentle readers and o my best beloveds_

Chapter 7:

"Tifa."

The voice was soft and low and at first it didn't rouse her. It repeated her name again though and she felt a body lower itself into her space, taking up too much room because it was too close. She realized it didn't bother her though, in fact it felt nice, the way it felt nice when her children at school crowded close around her. Vague, she turned her head and saw shards of solidified electric and neon green.

"Tifa," it said her name softer and she felt a hand gently cup her cheek. The smile came without conscious need.

"Cloud," she said the name and the recognition came after it. He grunted his response but his eyes didn't looks so tight and hard afterward. They looked… familiar. Not – not the color but something… something inside them…

Something nostalgic and… painful?

"Tifa," he tipped her face toward him and it jogged her mind as his breath whispered over her skin. It made her shiver and he made a soothing sound and his thumb brushed over her cheek.

"It's okay. I'm here. I think it's over. Come on back now."

She blinked and her mind kept sparking, slowly shrugging off the grogginess. That's right – they were in the Shinra holding cell. They'd been talking about game dynamics. And then… and then everything had gone… funny. It had been a little like the confusion spell except more - focused. First her eyes had gone strange, her vision sharpening and then going blurry and then sharpening too much. Her hearing had done the same thing and then her body had started to ache, like pulled muscles and bruised shins and jarred bones and aching joints. It had hurt and made her feel nauseated at the same time. She swallowed now and gingerly reached out, fingers finding Cloud's forearms. They were warm. His skin was warm. She blinked and rubbed her fingers over that warmth.

"Are you all right?" she asked, vaguely remembering him doubling over near her at almost the same time she had fallen over. He grunted assent but – she was already distracted.

He'd been warm before. That had been the kind of warmth you felt from a heater. A part of her had recognized that somewhere in a tube circuits close to her body had run hotter in response to his simulated proximity and her mind had registered it as heat from his body. This – wasn't. She tested it, spreading her fingers and pressing them down. His skin gave more than it had before. As if it was… normal skin. She could feel muscle under it and she rolled her fingertips to test the new sensation. She'd been involved in living through an avatar so long that she hadn't realized how much more sensitive a real human body was. He made a noise, low in his throat, as she leaned closer to smell him. Storm wind and lightning and – something that reminded her of sun warmed park benches...

"Tifa," his voice was throatier than it had been and it sounded almost physical against her ears. Her eyes shot up to him and found his face close to hers, his eyes very dark. It made her blink. Dilated pupils were far too detailed for an avatar.

"Are we – " she had to pause because she shouldn't even have to ask and yet - "Still in the game?"

He grunted but after a minute more, he nodded once.

"Yeah. Nobody came to extract us. We're still in."

Worried now, she ran her fingers along his arm again.

"You feel too – real."

He made another low noise in the back of his throat and his voice was gruff when he asked:

"Do you want to see just how real I've become? Because I think the others are still out and just because I can make it fast doesn't mean I can't make it good."

She looked at him from the tops of her eyes, and her lips shifted.

"If I say 'yes' would you take me up on it?"

His eyes narrowed in response.

"Tifa…" he dipped his head so his eyes were level with hers. Very stern, he warned: "Don't tease."

Somehow it made her relax and she couldn't help smiling up at him. Light, she touched his cheek.

"Then don't pretend you're a jerk when there's no one here to fool."

For a minute, his eyes flickered and, for just that moment, his body seemed to sag a little. Shoulders slumped and the usual wicked curve hiding in the corner of his lips disappeared.

"You don't know me that well."

It was so quiet and so tired that she thought he hadn't meant to say it out loud. Especially when directly afterward he got a foot under him and pushed up. She caught his wrist and stopped him in mid-rise.

"I could," she offered because something in him, so lonely and alone, tugged at her. As large and strong and solid as he was, he reminded her of some of the children she worked with that came from harsh homes, so desperate for love and so determined not to show it. His blond hair shadowed his eyes.

"Tifa – "

"I could," she firmed her offer. "I'm a very good friend. You can ask – any of my friends. Even if this is a game, Cloud, that doesn't mean I can't be your friend."

He made a sound and it was suspiciously like a choked off, bitter laugh. His face was turned away from her.

"Let go."

"No." She was more determined than ever and she gave his wrist a little tug to prove her point. He was standing so far away from everyone even when he was right next to them and yet the way that he watched them all… the way that he watched her…

It was a little boy in a playground, toy in hand, while everyone else crowded around each other on the opposite side of the area from him and played their own games. It broke her heart when it happened at her school, the fact he was an adult didn't make her notice or feel the pain of it less. She'd never been able to bear it, even when she'd been a child, and so she knew she sounded young – but her approach had never stopped working.

"I'll let go after you promise to be my friend."

"Tifa," it was a strangled sound, as if he couldn't decide whether he should laugh or yell at her. He hadn't once, not once, tried to pull his wrist out of her hand though.

"Cloud – " she mimicked the tone.

She was suddenly being scooped up, so that her legs unfolded under her and she was pressed tightly against him. He felt… better than he had before too. More – natural, with angles and planes where they should be on a normal person instead of on a perfectly built avatar. The hand that wasn't still around his wrist, and now twisted a little to follow his arm behind her waist, latched on to his shoulder automatically for balance. His voice was muffled by her hair.

"I know you're a good friend, Tifa. I know. But stop it. _I'm_ not a good friend. So just – leave it. All right? We're fine the way we are. Stop- just stop."

Her chin was tucked in where it had ended up pressed against his shoulder. Nice. The fabric felt nice. His shoulder felt nice.

He was nice. If he'd really wanted to convince her otherwise, he should be getting touchy-feely with his hands instead of one-armed hugging her.

Her father had always said she was too stubborn for her own good. She shook her head.

"That's not true. You _are_ a good friend. You're using the money from this contest for one of your friends. And you saved Jessie when no one else even thought to." Some of the surety left her as she added: "You saved me."

She felt his exhale against her shoulder and held herself still so that she wouldn't shiver. Whatever was going on with their avatars, someone had tuned the skin sensors on hers too high, she decided. It was the only thing that explained the funny tingles running over her nerves.

"You'll get hurt." His voice was so quiet, as if he didn't want to tell her but felt obligated to, and she couldn't tell if that had been an 'again' on the end of his confession or not. His arm around her had tightened and she felt the press of his fingers against the bare skin of her waist. It made her smile softly against him though because she knew she'd won. She let go of his wrist and used that hand to reach up and stroke his hair. For a moment, just a moment, he reminded her of a little boy.

"Everyone gets hurt. I want you to be my friend. I want to be your friend. Because things don't hurt as much when you're with friends."

"Don't want to see you get hurt again," his voice was muffled and still a little strangled. His head had bowed into her touch and it surprised her. He seemed so competent and strong. So alone. She wouldn't have thought he was the kind to accept comfort from a stranger so easily. It melted her heart a little, that he would trust her that way, and she slipped her arms around him a bit more.

"We'll watch out for each other. And when this is all over we'll go out to the best Korean barbeque in the city and stuff ourselves."

"Right," even muffled his voice didn't sound at all believable but before she could poke him about that, he raised his head and stated calmly:

"The light's off. Looks like our door's finally unlocked."

She didn't respond to that right away. Because – it scared her. The game… it didn't feel like a game anymore. It felt – threatening. Serious. As if you really could get hurt. There were no friendly voices in her ear to remind her things weren't real. Cloud's hand smoothed over her hair, sending pleasant ripples back up to shiver along her scalp.

"It's okay," his voice was that low, soft sound that always made her feel better. "I'm here. Let's go get the others."

Just like that the comforter role had shifted. It made her smile a bit wryly to herself, realizing that. She was glad he made her feel safe but… she'd enjoyed her brief moment of being able to be there for him too. Against him, she nodded and then stepped back. Determined.

"All right," she nodded and he gave her a crooked smile. One of his eyelids flickered down and the surprise of it had her laughing. Things really would be okay.

He moved to the door ahead of her and gestured her back behind him as he flattened himself against the wall. She did as instructed and watched him palm the panel to open the door. It paused – and then slid soundlessly open. Ahead of her, he made a noise, low in his throat and almost silent before moving quickly around the corner. A second later, when she followed him, she caught herself making a similar noise.

Someone had reprogrammed her nose. The smell of blood, all slick oil and iron, was cloying and under that were darker tones of bile and bowels and bone. She froze despite her determination not to as the tread of her boots made a soft suctioning noise against the sticky red trail on the floor.

The walls were coated with a similar drying river. Knowing better, she still looked up and saw the same on the ceiling above. Small bits of something she tried not to look too closely at broke up the otherwise slick crimson. With a shudder, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to position herself so none of the small chunks of flesh on the ceiling would drop on her if they fell.

"Here," Cloud was back, a sheltering presence that stood too close and made her feel safe. He pressed a key card into her hand and she wasn't so far gone that she didn't notice it had been wiped clean. His fingers pressed gently into the skin at her waist and it released the shivers that had nothing to do with the warmth of his touch. He made a low sound in his throat and bent his head until his hair and his eyes filled her view. His other hand closed over hers that held the key card and his eyes were very sincere as he said:

"You're right. We can leave them in there a bit longer. Let's go find a bedroom and work on the 'getting to know each other better' part of our friendship."

She blinked at him. Then the color flooded her face and she gave his shoulder a push.

"Cloud!"

He rocked back on his heels with a grin. It was an unrepentant, wolfish grin. She rolled her eyes at him and turned, trotting over to slide the card through the slot outside the door Barret and Red were in.

"An' look, I'm tellin' ya, Namikaze would wipe the board if he ever played in the Olympiad. It's just 'cause he won't play for FIDE that he's not ranked top. I've seen him checkmate in three moves!"

"I'm not sure," Red's voice was all rolling r's and furry vowels. "Sino is – Tifa!"

"eh?" Barret's huge head turned but Tifa was already on her knees, arms full of red fur.

"Hey, Red," she buried her face in his comforting pelt and inhaled the strange dusty cinnamon smell.

"Tifa," his voice held a world of emotion. And then he was suddenly jerking his head to the side and sneezing hugely. Pulling back, he shook his head.

"My apologizes. The smells – " he sneezed again. "I am still getting used to them. " Then he made a coughing noise and looked passed her out the door. "What is that horrible smell?"

"Someone killed… a lot of people out there," Tifa stood back up as Barret walked over to stand next to her. "It's… it looks – " She couldn't think of a way to describe it and so she simply shook her head. Barret moved passed her to look out the door and grunted.

"It looks lika Doom video game. But with more lighting."

Seemingly unphased, he tromped out the door. Tifa and Red carefully inched to the edge of the room and looked out after him. The hallway still hung with clotting blood.

Red sneezed again and pawed at his noise.

"Tifa," Cloud appeared around the corner of the hall, headed back toward them. His sword was slung over his back. "Get Jessie and Aerith. Barret, come with me."

"Sure," the giant black man followed the blond back around the corner and Tifa started down the hall toward the last cell. Red stayed behind. She paused to look back at him and his gold eye watched her from the door of his own cell. Red shifted uncomfortably on his feet and behind him she caught a flicker of flame as his tail whipped passed.

"I can – feel. Through my feet, Tifa. I will be able to feel the blood."

"oh." It hadn't occurred to her and it took her a moment to realize exactly what that would feel like. She nodded.

"It's okay. Stay there. I'll get Aerith and Jessie and we'll figure something out."

He nodded but his eye glinted gold as he watched her carefully.

Out of polite habit, she knocked on the door before swiping the card. Almost before she had it entirely open, her arms were already full of Aerith.

"Oh," Aerith sounded as if she had tears in her voice again. "I was so scared."

The other woman was trembling and Tifa wrapped her arms around her instinctively to hug her close.

"It's all right," she assured. "We're all together now."

Aerith nodded weakly against her and then lifted her head to look over her shoulder.

"Where's Cloud?"

Jessie peeked around the corner of the room and wrinkled her nose at the smell.

"He's with Barret. They'll be right back," Tifa said. Aerith's arms dropped from her and the other woman stepped back to fold them over her chest.

"Why?" she asked. "He's supposed to be here."

"I don't think we're exactly playing this by game rules anymore," Jessie commented, stepping out into the hallway to look up at the ceiling and then over at Red.

"He's supposed to be protecting us," Aerith pointed out.

"We'll be okay," Tifa answered and Aerith gave her a look.

"You will. You're used to unarmed combat. Jessie and I need weapons to defend ourselves."

It caught her a little off guard and she frowned. Aerith was right, of course. She hadn't considered that, against monsters, she was the only one of the women trained to fight unarmed. It still seemed a bit – jarring when Aerith said it that way. She nodded in response though. The other woman had been through one of these games before. She wasn't wrong to point these kinds of things out to the rest of them.

"Well, then, I'll just have to keep you safe until he gets back."

"That's sweet," Aerith patted her on the shoulder. "But Cloud's the protector. You shouldn't have to try to take his place."

"Take whose place?" Cloud appeared around the corner of the hall

"Cloud!" Aerith was in his arms in a heartbeat, causing him to drop the metal staff he was carrying. He jostled and managed to hang on to the assault rifle.

"I was so scared," Aerith sounded as if she had tears in her voice again.

Tifa turned away, feeling vague disgruntled and fairly sure she didn't have a reason to feel that way. Jessie was crouched down on her heels in front of Red and Tifa trotted over to join them. Jessie looked up and then over passed her. One of the red head's eyebrows arched and Tifa was intrigued by the simple motion. They were a long way from their avatars.

"Looks like she's taking my 'triangle' advice to heart."

"Hm?" Tifa asked, stepping passed Red to walk back into the cell.

"Well, it's not like you melt yourself against someone you're not interested in." Jessie paused and then added thoughtfully, "I wonder if she means it?"

Tifa maneuvered the mattress off of the cot.

"She did say it would be dishonest to pretend to love someone you didn't," she reminded the other girl and then knelt down on the mattress. "Besides, Cloud makes people feel safe. Wanting to be around him isn't a sign that she's in love." She found a break in the seams and started to tear.

Jessie walked over to lean over next to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Making Red some shoes. He shouldn't have to walk barefoot through what's outside."

Between the three of them, they had Red in two of the wrappings before a voice from the door said:

"You're kidding me."

Tifa looked up from tucking the mattress stuffing into the center of one of the pieces of fabric.

"He can't walk barefoot through that," she told Cloud and he walked in, dropping to rest on his heels near her, arms loose over his thighs.

"So you're putting him in… booties?"

Next to him, Jessie started to snicker. At the puzzled glance from both Tifa and Cloud she managed:

"Bootie call," before going back to tying the third of the makeshift shoes onto Red's ankles. He was flat on his stomach, legs stiffly splayed out, eye shut, ignoring them all. Cloud made a choking noise in the back of his throat.

"Jessie," he chided, eyes laughing. "My virgin ears."

She went a bit pink but looked pleased with herself.

"Bet Tifa could help you with that."

"Jessie!" Tifa protested as Cloud started chuckling. The other woman just gave her an innocent look.

"I'm a cloti shipper," Jessie said. "Besides, you two obviously enjoy being together."

"That was a prison cell," Tifa felt compelled to point out. "It wasn't as if they gave us a choice."

"She's hot," Cloud explained at the same time. "What guy wouldn't take the chance to be 'together' with her?"

"Stop it," Tifa protested it as she gave him a firm push. He remained unmoved but his eyes were softly laughing at her. "You're not supposed to do that anymore. We're friends now."

"Friends make the best lovers," Jessie offered and Tifa gave her an exasperated look for not helping matters any. The other woman just smiled as she took the last 'shoe' from Tifa. Cloud caught her hand as she started to withdraw it after passing Jessie the cloth and laid it on the top of his thigh, resting his own on top of it. Somehow… it was a reassuring move.

"We're friends," he agreed gently. Then he lifted his head and looked at the others. "Has anyone heard from their gamers recently?"

Jessie shook her head and Red gave a muffled:

"No," as he stood up and tried to find his balance through the wraps over his feet. Tifa knew that he used his toenails for that and the 'shoes' were definitely going to get in the way there. Aerith slipped in the door to stand with the fronts of her legs pressed against Cloud's back.

"I haven't heard from Lily and Violet since I got caught," she whispered. From the door, Barret shook his head as well.

"All right," Cloud's voice was level and factual. "We need to consider ourselves in a red zone. The game obviously isn't proceeding the way it should. We've lost contact with our gamers and Rufus hasn't shown up to tell us what's going on either. From this point on, we need to consider ourselves in a hostile environment and we need to take that threat very seriously. No heroics, no taking chances. We play this straight and smart, got it?"

Tifa nodded but Barret was grinning.

"Shit. Don't you sound 'military' – "

Cloud's eyes slid calmly to the other man and he asked:

"Where did you learn?"

Barret's eyes bugged, just a little and his face changed.

"You're not shittin'? You're military?!" The mix of awe and disgust in his voice was almost equal. Cloud didn't answer but his thumb didn't stop stroking over the top of Tifa's hand where it was still resting on his leg either. After a minute longer of the silence, Barret's shoulders sagged a little and he just looked puzzled.

"Learned it in video games, of course. You're really military?"

"Yeah," Cloud stood up and moved to the door, checking back out into the hallway. He looked back at the group. "It's time to move."

"To the president's office?" Aerith asked but even she didn't sound very sure.

"Aerith," Jessie protested. "We're not playing this game anymore. We need to get out of here."

From the doorway, Cloud made a noise.

"We go up." At their looks of surprise, he shook his head. "Rufus' office is up there. It's rigged to interface with the outside world. If we can, we need to reestablish contact. Rufus' office is our best chance for that at the moment."

Red finally spoke up.

"Than I suggest we do so quickly. The atmosphere here is not growing any more pleasant."

Cloud gave a nod and unslung his sword.

"Let's mosey."

And only Tifa seemed to realize that he hadn't made eye contact with her since the revelation about his career.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

There weren't any bodies.

It was starting to bother him. There had been dead bodies originally but the deeper they went into the building… the bodies just disappeared. There were – pieces… but nothing big enough.

There should be bodies. And there weren't.

He moved down the hall. While he realized that leaving the cells might make them harder targets to extract, he also couldn't bring himself to sit around and wait for someone else to come rescue him. He saved others; he didn't get saved. Being proactive was ingrained, bone deep. When your job was considered the last resort, who was left to come for you if you blew it?

He'd taken point and he had Hey as rear gunner. It kept the girls and the – cat-dog-thing in the middle. The middle of the group was mildly safer but he didn't have them there just for their own safety. He expected their backup during fights. Not so much from Aerith and Red, who was having a hard time keeping traction in his booties and couldn't use his claws, but both Jessie and Tifa were armed.

Tifa…

God. He'd fucked that up pretty bad back in the holding cell. The guilt was still gnawing at his stomach over it. He was really going to have to learn how to tell her 'no'. She'd looked at him with those eyes of hers – and even though he knew they weren't really _her _eyes, they'd still been close enough. He'd caved for her the same way he'd caved all those years ago in their childhood when he'd thought she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen and she'd stubbornly ignored his shyness and stumbling words and insisted that they needed to be friends.

To this day, he wasn't sure why she always seemed to single him out to claim as one of her friends. Even as a child she'd been kind and empathetic. He remembered that. He just didn't know why she'd decided to adopt a scrawny half-breed kid who couldn't even speak the language right and had been the butt of so many of his classmates jokes. Jokes he hadn't had to understand to understand. She had though. And he'd never forgotten that.

He'd been miserable those years of his early childhood, trying to fit in to please his mother and trying to stay under the radar of everyone in the school. He'd noticed her though. Everyone noticed her. Even as a child she'd been adorable, all large eyes and dimples in her cheeks and uneven teeth that always showed because she was always smiling. He'd fallen in love with her from his spot in the back of the room on the very first day of class. Stupidly, hopelessly, childishly in love…

On the second week of walking home from school via the long route so no one would bother him, she'd shocked him by skipping up to walk next to him. He'd been too shy and suspicious and he'd tucked his chin down and walked a little faster.

He remembered that she'd skipped to stay next to him.

She'd done that for a week. A week of skipping next to him in silence and then, when they reached a certain street, she would turn off with a cheerful call and a wave. He'd only found out much, much later that she had to take that street so that she could double back and go home in the opposite direction. He remembered, he'd started to dawdle outside of the school if she didn't show up right away to walk him home – and she never let him down. Not once.

She wasn't the kind of girl that would let someone down. No matter what it cost her…

The monster came out of the side hallway and he was already stepping forward to meet it. He'd heard its claws on the slick floor. His hearing was alarmingly sharp, to the point that he worried about what high-pitched noises might do to it. It had been bad before, getting worse, but after the episode in the cell, it was so acute he could, if he listened, hear his companions breathing behind him. He could, if he was close enough, hear their heartbeats. It was – disturbing. He was pretty sure his avatar wasn't supposed to be that souped up.

It was worse around Tifa though. Her skin suddenly had a scent to it and that warm/soft/clean smell went straight down into him whenever she was too close.

His blade, sweeping upward, caught the monster, something that had too many legs and no eyes, in the gut. The force of the blow knocked it backward and something green and pungent leaked out of the gaping hole he'd put in it, dribbling down to mix with the sticky, now drying blood that already trailed the hallway. Anything real would have run at that point. It was simple survival instinct. The monsters here at least still seemed to be computer controlled though because it came at him instead, a flurry of flashing claws and snapping teeth. He noticed liquid at the edges of its jaws. The blade in his hands snapped up, wrists high, blade pointed downward to block and he noticed how much lighter the metal of his sword seemed.

How much easier it was to move into the sword skills he'd spent the past few months learning and perfecting for this game.

There was a sudden blur of motion to his right and the sound of fists impacting with flesh. Tifa. She'd been playing his wingman since they'd gotten out of the cells. Both HeyYou and Jessie had guns – and they weren't allowed to use those when their companions were in close combat. He didn't trust either of their marksman skills that much. He heard a crack as fist struck bone and the monster in front of him staggered backward, dark murk oozing through the dent in the side of its skull. He swung the sword up and brought it down with quick efficiency, not wanting to risk a sweeping blow that might catch his companion. The monster split and the smell that came from it was enough to drive him back a step.

Damn! He needed to find nose plugs. The enhanced senses were coming close to crippling him.

Tifa's hand touched his shoulder and he turned to see her worried eyes on him. He knew he should shrug her off – or make a crack about high kicks and that short skirt of hers… but instead he felt his shoulders relaxing, just a little, and the air felt clearer.

Damn, damn, damn…

He'd promised himself, when he'd seen her the first time after all these years… when he'd realized she was a part of the game too… he'd promised himself he would only protect her.

… not fall in love with her all over again.

Whatever she saw on his face, it pulled up a soft smile in her own. He liked the way it made the edges of her eyes crinkle. Damn it – he'd been smiling, hadn't he? Yes. On checking the way his face felt, he had been smiling. Barely but still –

God damn it! What was wrong with him? He had better control than this. With a grunt, he turned and started forward again. Hoping something showed up for him to kill as he stepped around the still twitching body of the last monster. If anything was trying to follow them, they were certainly leaving an obvious enough trail. The monsters weren't vanishing when they were killed and, as far as he could tell, they weren't leaving anything useful lying around their bodies either.

It had occurred to him that the 'useful' items might be inside their stomachs or craws – but he hadn't had the time to investigate that theory yet. Priorities said get to the comm. units first; rifle through monster guts second.

At least some of his priorities were still straight.

The layout of the building seemed to be the same as it had been in the original video game. He'd studied that game, especially the buildings, intently. He was used to having to study up on foreign areas and sometimes the intel he'd had to use was a lot less detailed then what the pixilated game had offered him. It had actually been nice to insert into an area with a solid understanding of potential hostiles and the surrounding areas.

That alone should have tipped him off that something was bound to go wrong.

This time, he could actually smell Hojo's lab before they reached it. It was a blood smell that was stronger than the new blood that slicked the hallways. Older. It was piss and fear and death and rot too and under that were the smells of antiseptics and cleaning fluid and sticky smelling medicine. It was – he paused just outside the doorway and inhaled, filtering out smells even though his stomach rebelled at it. And since when had his stomach been involved in the game?

It was… something mixed in with those smells reminded him of fish the way they smelled pulled fresh from the ocean. And beyond that –

Beyond that he smelled something that smelled like ozone and ice crystals in the air when you were too high up in the chopper. It was the way oxygen tasted in the back of your throat when you pulled a HALO jump. It fizzed and popped in his blood and he exhaled through his mouth just to feel the heat against the cold in that smell.

It made something in him… hungry and this time it wasn't his stomach.

Fingers lightly found his bare arm again and he turned his head, already knowing he'd be looking into wine colored eyes when he did. Tifa peered at him in the shadows the hall had gathered here in the portal into a different world from the offices behind them. He moved his chin, just a slight side to side, but enough to count as a head shake. Her lips pressed together and she nodded in return, fingers drawing back.

Their communication shouldn't be that easy.

She'd said she'd be his friend.

The last time he had let her be his friend she'd gotten hurt because of it.

At least, back then, she'd been smart enough to stop being his friend afterward.

Pulling in a breath against that memory, he pushed forward into the lab.

Here it looked as if the game was still playing by the rules. The Jenova container had been broken out of from the inside. The blood trail thickened in front of it and then continued on. The deep ocean smell lingered there too. The rest of the lab had been carelessly ruined, an obvious afterthought. It was a mad scientist's lab. He doubted he'd find much that was useful in it and even if by some freak chance it was labeled in a way he'd recognize, he still probably wouldn't trust it. There would still be bandages though, sutures, maybe some sterile syringes.

Maybe he was expecting the game to provide too much – but it had been surprisingly detailed lately and he thought it was worth a quick look at least. He'd already tested the materia, using it on a gash Tifa had gotten on her leg. It had worked. The problem with that was that he had no idea how long 'magic' would last, if it would recharge, or even if it would be consistent. What if the game suddenly forget to spark the damn thing? He'd decided to hold off on using it unless it was a last resort and so far they hadn't had to.

He did worry that taking a 'nap' might not restore them to full health and just how long they could go if they were running this real instead of as a simulation.

It hadn't escaped him to worry about what happened if one of them 'died' while the computer was on the fritz…

His gesture brought the others to him. They were getting better at watching for his signals.

"Hey, watch that way," he gestured. "Jessie, Red, that way."

"Gottcha," Hey You took up a surprisingly passable position to cover the way deeper into the lab. Red and Jessie managed something that he thought was good enough. Cloud wasn't all that worried about stealthy ambushes at this point. It seemed, so far, to simply be random monsters wandering in.

"Cloud?"

It was Aerith and he turned his head to look at her as he finished repositioning Jessie's aim so she wouldn't ricochet bullets into her team if she fired her gun. At his grunt, Aerith slipped a little closer to him.

"I'm scared," she admitted and he looked blankly down at her and wondered what he was supposed to say. Even though, technically, he was trained, he had failed out horribly when it came to having a 'bedside manner'. Downed pilots and lost airmen usually preferred you tell them straight up how bad the situation really was and even when they didn't – they usually knew enough to simply not ask. Absent, Cloud rubbed at the scar on the side of the ridge of his nose in awkwardness before his eyes went wide at the realization –

Shit! Fuck! That scar was part of his real body. He'd impacted unexpectedly and broken his sunglasses against the bridge of his nose a couple years ago in a training exercise that had gone wrong. His avatar hadn't had a matching scar. It shouldn't now –

"Cloud?"

She'd tipped the upper part of her body to lean closer, watching him with huge green eyes. It also, incidentally, gave him a clear shot down the neckline of her dress.

"Stay with the others. You'll be safe," he told her, thinking advice was probably her best defense against fear. She huffed though and looked hurt, pulling back to cross her arms at him.

"Aren't you going to tell me everything is going to be all right?"

He looked at her, puzzled.

"No," he gave what he assumed was the obvious answer before giving Jessie's shoulder a pat for holding the gun steady and then striding over to the door that led to the observation booth.

"Back in two," he told the others as he ducked inside. Or maybe three, he thought as he inhaled surprisingly untainted air. There was no blood in the small, glass enclosed room. The air simply smelled like old coffee, sweat and cleaning fluid. The small headache that had been forming behind his eyes subsided. He could live with that.

Quick, he started popping open drawers and cases, simply wrenching cheap hinges off when he hit a lock box or case. He had a mental list of what he was looking for and he'd been right to guess that most of the basics were kept in the booth. All the mad scientist shit was outside, as much for effect as quick access. In here though was where they kept the extra, mundane items and the stuff that looked as if they only needed it during emergencies. Bingo. It was just what he needed. Efficient, he went about the job of ransacking the room.

"You were supposed to tell her everything would be okay."

He made a noise in his throat, not surprised by the sound of Tifa's voice. He'd smelled her clear scent the second she'd opened the door and it had made his stomach knot in a way that had nothing to do with nausea.

"Give me about ten minutes with you and I'll make it better than 'okay'," he rumbled. A pen bounced off his shoulder. She'd always had good aim.

"Cloud – " it was a protest that indicated she wasn't going to humor him. "She's scared. We all are." Her scent got more intoxicating as she came up next to him, picking up the items he'd been setting on top of the console and putting them into what looked like a large sample bag. "It's okay to tell people things will work out even if you don't know that they will."

He shook his head.

"People won't prepare the way they should if they expect things to get better."

She huffed a sound and tagged him lightly on the back of his head. It surprised him because he didn't remember the last time someone had dared hit him unless they were deadly serious. She was looking at him, unimpressed.

"Cloud Strife, you don't believe that for one minute." One of her hands was on her hip. "So don't expect me to."

He couldn't help it. The edge of his mouth twitched. Just barely – but it did. She sounded just like a schoolteacher. Then the amusement faded and he turned back to what he was doing. Time was of the essence – but more… he didn't want to have to face her as he admitted:

"I can't tell someone that things will get better. Not – not if I can't make sure that they do."

"Cloud…" her voice was soft. As if she realized she'd just hit a nerve. He shook his head and dumped the Curlex he'd found into the bag she was still holding.

"Don't," he answered just as softly. "It just taught me to never make a promise if I couldn't keep it. It's a good lesson to learn. An adult lesson." He straightened up from the last drawer and took the now full bag from her, tying it safely shut. She looked so stricken, so worried, that he couldn't help himself. Lowering his face to bring it close to hers, he murmured:

"…hey, if it really bothers you that much, I'll make it up to you by letting you ride the chocobo when we get out of here."

"CLOUD!"

"What?" he couldn't help his smirk as he moved to the door. "Chocobo Billy's is our next stop when we get out of here. Get your mind out of the gutter, Lockheart."

The sound she made behind him told him it was a good thing he was already joining the others and he smiled to himself as he carefully placed the plastic bag in Aerith's hands. She looked at him and the look wasn't exactly friendly. Damn it, he wasn't good with figuring out what women wanted from him.

"I'm a medic, but I can't do it alone. I need someone I can trust to be there just as soon as I need them and I need someone who can give me what I ask for without panicking if someone's hurt. They set you up to be the team healer. Can you help me?"

Her eyes were huge as they looked up at him and she nodded, pressing her lips firmly together. He managed a small smile for her – hoping to God she really could and she wouldn't just fall apart on him the second she saw someone's blood. Somehow – he wasn't too worried about it. He suspected there was a lot more under the pink exterior she was playing on. She clutched the bag to her chest.

"I'll help," she nodded firmly and he nodded back.

"Thanks."

"Cloud – "

It was Red and he turned his attention on the animal, catching the way Tifa moved over to join Hey from the corner of his eye. In front of him the critter shook his head.

"There's a bad smell here. It smells… thick." The head shook again and the single gold eye gleamed up at him, confusion plainly written in it. He could understand that. His own sense of smell was trying to drive him mad and he could only assume Red's was much better than even his. The beast tried again.

"It smells – compacted. Thick." He tried it again and then snarled. "I am sorry. I can't find the right word for it. It smells pressed together. Bad. It makes the hair on my neck upstanding."

"Anywhere specific?" Cloud focused on what seemed most important and the giant dog swung its head from side to side, eye lidded as it inhaled.

"Forward," Red finally decided and Cloud glanced in that direction. It was the direction they were headed. He gave a grunt.

There was always the back out option. They didn't _have_ to get up to the President's office. The outside communication was supposed to be there but there wasn't even any guarantee that it worked. They certainly hadn't heard from Rufus since their capture. It was entirely sensible to turn around and head back down the elevator and get the hell out of Dodge.

He did intend to get the hell out of Dodge in fact. Just – those comm. unites were far too important to ignore the possibility of.

The others were watching him and it occurred to him, in the real world, he should probably take a vote or something. Split the team at least and send half of them out. He just – he couldn't keep an eye on everyone if he split the team and he didn't trust this world they were in. He had a bunch of civilians with him, not a trained team. No, he decided. Everyone stayed with him.

"Keep track of it," he told Red and the dog nodded at him, a strange jerking motion.

"All right," he moved passed Hey and Tifa. "Let's get to the end of this."

The elevators seemed to still work and that included the one at the other end of the lab. The save point however was missing and he didn't like that either. The OB was still there though and so he popped open the Obvious Box and took the small stone out of it. He tossed it to Jessie, who was getting used to catching materia when he lobbed it at her.

"Poison," she answered and then frowned. "Probably."

She knew generally what items were around what areas, he'd found. If the game was fucking things up though, he wouldn't put it passed it to give them a flower making materia or give them what should have been a heal and turned out to be a poison. So Jessie got to carry the ones they weren't sure of and he kept a close eye on the ones he'd already been wearing.

The lift moved upward once they were on it and the grinding of the gears had him flexing his jaw to pop his ears. The smell of blood and ocean depths was thick in the enclosed space and Red sneezed.

"Thick," he managed and Cloud nodded. This close, he could smell… something as well. Red's description was as close to one as he could come as well. It smelled – pressing. Surreptitious, his hand shifted forward and curved around Tifa's hip. Slow he drew her backward and she let him, shifting as he pulled so that her back came into contact with his chest. Better… he lowered his head, just enough to be able to smell her hair and shut his eyes for a moment. She smelled good – warm – and it helped block out the claustrophobic smell that riddled the rest of the interior. She was also as taut as a piano wire and, without really thinking about it, he reached up and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. Her head dropped, just a little, chin tucking down and he watched her shoulders droop just a little too.

She shouldn't be here. This was supposed to be a game – all just for fun. She was made for fun. For smiling and laughing and teasing, for running on the beach or chasing laughing children or giggling with girl friends in a roadside stand somewhere. Not… not this.

He'd get her somewhere safe. He promised it silently to her as she relaxed under his touch and the scent of her hair surrounded him.

"Getting thicker," Red's voice broke him out of his thoughts and he realized he'd let his face sink so that his nose had been buried in Tifa's soft hair, letting it tickle his cheeks and chin. He looked over at the dog but it was looking out the grating at the moving wall. Lifting his head, he inhaled as well. It was getting thicker. And – that ocean smell was getting stronger. Gentle, he tugged Tifa behind him.

"Hey, Jessie, to the front. Guns at the ready. Red, you keep guard on Aerith. She'd got our med supplies. Tifa, you come in after I do if we get into anything ugly."

The specimen elevator was a prefect ambush spot but it was also the only way up. If there were stairs in this place, he didn't know where they were. They'd covered almost every area of some of these floors. Damn computer design.

By the time the light from the opening appeared at the top of the grate, Cloud's muscles were already tense and straining. Hey had his gun already raised and fixed on that growing rectangle of light and Jessie, after noticing, followed suit. Cloud flexed his hand on the handle of his sword and shifted his shoulders, letting them loosen and stretch.

Nothing showed up in the doorway as the elevator came to a halt and he reached passed Jessie to unlatch the gate. It pushed back and still there was nothing there but a blood coated floor and the remains of the upstairs lab. Hey went out first, covering and Cloud gave Jessie a gentle nudge to indicate she should follow. Then he came and was careful to keep half an eye on the girls and the dog until the grate had been secured over the elevator again. The compact smell was strong and so was the deep sea muck smell but he didn't see anything to cause it. Casting a cautious eye to the ceiling, he took point again. Hey was the best one with a gun… but he also didn't have advanced hearing. If they were going to walk into an ambush, Cloud figured he'd be the first one to realize it and it was better if he was at the front when he did.

They cleared the lab without problems however and worked their way up the stairs that led to the upper floor. The President's office was two floors above the lab and Cloud had to wonder at the placement. President of a world controlling company and you really wanted the mad scientist labs to be right next to you? It seemed… counterproductive somehow…

The comms were on the floor just below the President's office though. At the secretary's desk as a matter of fact and Cloud could appreciate the wry humor of that. He had no intention of going into the President's office. This was a silent op, get in, get the intel, get out. No big bangs or flashy stuff. If they could keep it quiet enough, anything waiting for them in the President's office would never even know they'd been there.

Unfortunately – it wasn't waiting for them in the President's office.

It had decided to wait for them at the comm. unit. And as Cloud came in the door, he realized that he was in a world of shit.

And that he now knew where all those missing bodies had gone and why things had smelled so 'compacted' earlier.


	9. Chapter 9

_it's been a long time coming - I know and I'm sorry. House hunting is a b- hard thing. But here it is and sorry for the rough edges on it. Also **warning:** it's a bit gory. One might even say... hinky._

Chapter 9:

When she'd been a child, sometimes she'd gone to horror movies with her friends. They were too young and they'd had to sneak in to see them. Tifa hadn't wanted to – but they were her friends and she hadn't wanted to be called a baby.

But in truth, she'd hated it.

She hated horror movies and always had the worse dreams for the longest time afterward as a child. She'd gotten into the habit of staring at the corner of the screen because only scardy-cats hid their eyes and if she was looking at the corner of the movie screen then her friends would still think she was watching and she didn't have to actually see what was going on – even though the sounds made it almost as bad.

Right now, as a full adult – Tifa had the strongest desire to stare at the corner of the 'screen'.

Aerith was somewhere behind her making horrified whimpering noises and Jessie was coughing dryly, as if she was trying not to gage.

Barret and Cloud were the only ones moving – and it was what saved the rest of them.

"GO!" Cloud bellowed it and suddenly he was in the way and his sword was catching one of the… pieces of creature that had lashed out at them. His voice was hard and strong and didn't hold a flicker of fear. There was no ignoring the command in it as he yelled: "Go, go, go!"

Tifa spun on her heel in response, his voice snapping her out of the frozen moment of horror and she roughly caught both Jessie and Aerith and tugged them backward by the shoulders. Aerith let out a squeak but turned on her heel and bolted back the way they'd come without hesitation. Jessie hesitated, raising her gun. Behind her, Tifa could hear Barret unloading every clip he had from the sound of it into the –

Into the nightmare.

Tifa had never seen something like the creature that had been waiting for them, half oozed over the secretary's desk and the precious comm. units they'd hoped to use – but she knew she'd be seeing it in her nightmares for a long time to come.

It had a rough form, a thick trunk that seemed to melt across the wide circular desk and onto the floor. Strange branches erupted from the top of it almost high enough to touch the vaulted ceiling. The 'branches' moved like tentacles though and they kept forming and reforming, never still, never the same amount as moments ago. It was vaguely hypnotic and vaguely motion sickness causing. That wasn't the nightmare part though.

The nightmare part was that the creature was made up of bodies. Body parts and sometimes almost complete bodies and they were all melted and meshed together like wet, leaking clay. Gore dripped each time the monstrosity moved and the bodies that made it up or coated it, writhed, both with the movement of the monster and also as if there were thousands of worms moving just under the surface of that mooted skin and exposed muscle. It was enough to make Tifa either want to retch – or start gibbering.

That still wasn't the real nightmare.

The real nightmare was the fact that – some of those bodies…? Their eyes were still moving. Wide and horror filled and silently screaming. Aware.

Tifa told herself that they weren't real. That they – all of it - were computer generated pixels without even an actor to move them. But the terror and pain in those eyes… it looked very, very real to her.

"Move, move!" Cloud was suddenly at her shoulder and she was catching Jessie by the elbow and hauling her as she ran.

Maybe they weren't playing the game right by not staying to fight the creature.

Maybe she'd apologize for that later – after she smacked the creators of that monster hard for being that sick in the first place.

Boots pounding, Tifa sprinted after the flash of Aerith's pink dress ahead of them. Something bone deep inside of her warned that she shouldn't try to fight that… thing. Not when all she had to use against it were her bare hands. She didn't even let herself think of what that meant.

Red went awkwardly scrambling past her – and then slowed down a little so that he ran ahead of her, but just barely. He cast his single golden eye over his shoulder at her from time to time to make sure she was keeping up.

Tifa had no intention of being the female character that tripped though.

She felt petty for having the time, in their mad scramble, to realize that Aerith, so far ahead of everyone, wasn't going to be using that cliché either apparently.

"How close?" she gasped out, not about to turn and look over her shoulder. Just behind her, she heard Cloud grunt.

"Close enough. We won't have much time. Can you hold Aerith?"

"What?"

"We can't get trapped in that elevator. So it's down the cables instead. You've got gloves and it'll protect your hands a bit more. Can you handle Aerith's weight if she's hanging on to your back?"

Tifa blinked and skid around a corner. Behind her she heard Barret sending off rounds of gunfire. Her first thought, instinctively, was to tell Cloud 'no'. She wasn't strong enough to support both herself and Aerith and she wasn't going to risk letting the other woman fall. Until she realized that – yes. Yes, in this body, she probably _was_ strong enough. What should have been impossible physically – wasn't in this world.

"Yes," she answered quickly. "If she hangs on, I can get us both down."

The approval in his voice pulled the brief smile out of her despite the situation as he stated low:

"That's my girl."

"The specimen elevator only goes down one floor," she warned and Cloud made a noise.

"Glass elevator," he reminded her and she was just opening her mouth when Aerith darted through a side door they'd ignored on the way in. Just behind her, she heard Cloud's quiet:

"Knew she'd remember."

Red followed Aerith through the door and the rest of them piled just as quickly through. Behind, in the narrow door leading to the short hall they'd just sprinted through, Tifa heard a noise, wet and liquid and huge. Behind her, voices started screaming too high pitched to be human.

"Don't look," Cloud grunted it and his voice was enough to block out the horror of realizing what must be making those disharmonious shrieks of pain. His hand was flat against the back of her shoulder as they went through the side door.

"Hey you!" Cloud shouted it and Barret was by his side in an instant. Cloud was already moving, as if he'd expected the other man to be there. "Help me tip these vending machines to block the door. Tifa, get the others to the elevator and explain what's going on."

There was something about the way he said it that had her doing what he'd ordered without hesitation. And she wanted to hesitate. She wanted, stupidly, to have one last look at him and hope that he'd meet her eyes and tell her it would be all right.

Which was selfish.

She told herself so and skid to a stop in front of the others. Aerith was frantically pushing the dark elevator call button and Jessie had recovered enough that her back was to the elevator and she had her gun pointed toward the door in. Behind her, Tifa heard heavy machines crashing over.

"We're going down the cable," Tifa hadn't realized how shaken she felt inside until she was shocked at how calm her own voice came out. A result of dealing with the minor emergencies of child care, she supposed, where any panic in her voice would have set off much worse panic in her charges. "Aerith, you're hanging on to my back because you don't have gloves."

"What?" both Aerith and Jessie said it together.

"Down the cables. No gloves people get to ride."

Jessie made an inarticulate, worried sound but Aerith frowned.

"Why am I hanging on to you? Isn't Cloud stronger? I should be riding him."

There was a moment in which Tifa's mind suddenly went very quiet and refused to fumble for an answer or an explanation. In that silence, Jessie's voice dryly commented:

"With." There was a brief pause, and she helpfully added: "With him. You should be riding _with_ him."

"Yes," Aerith looked blankly at Jessie as if not understanding why she was being told that.

"Red's riding with me," Cloud was suddenly next to them again, sword in hand. "Now step back."

His sword made quick work of the metal and a second later there was a horrendous grinding sound that seemed to echo forever before a resounding crash of the broken metal doors landing somewhere far below set Tifa's teeth on edge. She noticed the skin around Cloud's eyes tightening as well and his eyes narrowed. For a minute, from this angle, they were sky blue without a trace of glowing green at all.

They reminded her of her childhood… and her first heartbreak…

Cloud was talking and it snapped her back to the present.

"Elevator must be above then. Hey, go first. Keep your descent as slow as possible. Use your legs to absorb your weight when you land. Pop the nearest door open and help everyone else. Clear?"

Barret was grinning and had a slightly insane light in his eyes. To Tifa… it was almost worrying how much he seemed to be enjoying the situation.

"Roger." He leaned in to wrap his huge hand around the cable and a second later he disappeared. The screaming that started immediately afterward almost had Tifa darting forward in the pointless thought of trying to save him until she realized he was screaming words and they were:

"Hoo-rah, mother fuckers!"

"Jessie," Cloud pulled their attention away from the echoing enthusiasm just as a loud crashing sound was heard from the blocked archway in the other room. "Hands like this," Cloud demonstrated. Reaching out, he slung her gun across her shoulder by its strap and then guided her to the cable. When he was sure she had a good grip, he put his hands on her waist to hold her up until her boots had found the cable. Behind them the screaming had started again and it raised the fine hair on the back of Tifa's neck. Cloud acted as if he had all the time in the world.

"That's right. Boots like that. You can control your descent with how tightly you squeeze them. I want you to go down slow. It's real easy to go too fast and hurt yourself with the landing. Slow is better. Okay?"

"…yes…?" Jessie's voice sounded anything but.

"You'll do fine," Cloud promised. "Just hang on. The nutjob at the bottom will catch you. All you have to worry about is hanging on and going slow."

His crack at Barret had her making a choking noise and he pulled himself back out of the shaft. Jessie's head disappeared under the lip.

"Tifa," his voice called her next and it, again, managed to cut through the squelching sound that was starting to emanate from the nearby door. Cloud's arm wrapped around her waist the moment she was close and he pulled her into the shelter of his body, her back against his chest. She let herself be an absolute coward and pressed backward, feeling safe and suddenly realizing how chilly she'd been before as his warmth surrounded her.

"You'll do just fine," his voice was soft, quiet, and she felt him press his face into her hair. "You saw what I showed Jessie. Just do the same. With your long legs, you'll be a natural."

She made a protesting noise on his comment but didn't have it in her to really put force behind it. Instead she nodded against him but it was still hard when he gave her a gentle nudge to step out of the shelter of his arms and wrap her hands around the thick cord. His hands found her waist though and held her as well and she wound her feet the way he'd showed Jessie.

"Hurry – " Aerith's voice broke the slow motion that everything seemed to be going in for her and Cloud's hands stroked down to her hips, lingering, and then gave a squeeze before disappearing. A second later she felt a different weight pressed against her.

"Arms under and up over hers so you don't choke her, Aerith. Don't move and don't scream."

"I – I can't!" Aerith gasped even as her arms locked like steel traps around Tifa's arms and – she really didn't sound as if she was acting. "I'll fall."

Behind them there was the sound of something large breaking. To Tifa it sounded like the wall that had been surrounding the narrow doorway. Cloud's voice didn't change.

"No. You won't. You beat the last game. You'll beat this one. You're a survivor."

His hands must have left because Tifa felt Aerith's weight settle more completely on her and the other girl clenched her arms even tighter.

"You'll both do fine. Now go."

Tifa didn't wait. She let her boots loosen their clench around the rope and she started to drop. In her ear, Aerith made a squeaking sound but didn't scream. The world went black but Tifa heard something above that sounded like –

Sounded like the nightmare screaming.

She shouldn't have left. When Cloud spoke in that controlled, calm voice of his she forgot that she had a choice. He'd said 'go' and she'd gone. And she'd left him to fight – whatever that was all by himself with just Red to help.

Inwardly, she berated herself. It was impossible to go back up, the drop seemed to go on forever and Aerith was panting in small bursts of panic in her ear.

Next time… next time she wouldn't just blindly follow his orders, Tifa promised silently.

There had better _be_ a next time…

The cord jerked suddenly and she almost lost her grip. Aerith's tightened to the point of pain but Tifa managed to hold on. She tried to look down but she couldn't see anything but darkness. Had Jessie already reached the bottom?

Was there a bottom?

The cable flailed wildly again and Tifa felt the metal of it bite at her through her gloves her hands were clenched so tightly on it. Shifting her boots she let a little bit more slack in and let the controlled slide go faster. She heard something, distorted and hollow far above, roaring and screaming and moaning. Something fell passed her in the dark and she told herself it had felt too small to be Red or Cloud. Aerith gave up squeaking and just buried her head in her shoulder.

"Don't let me fall," the other girl whispered. "Please don't let me fall."

Tifa made a humming sound of negation but she didn't know if it carried. Something liquid and sticky slid down the cable, soaking her gloves and making it hard to find traction on with her boots.

The dark went on forever.

It was her turn to make a squeaking noise when she suddenly felt an arm wrap around both her and Aerith, hauling them back. Instinctively she grappled for the cable to hang on – and heard Barret's:

"Let go, Teefs. I got ya now."

She did what he said but found her fingers reluctant to commit to that after the long fall in the darkness. The soles of her boots touched solid ground and she staggered in surprise. Jessie was there to catch her.

To catch them both. Aerith was still clinging like a limpet despite the fact they were both standing.

"Thank you," the other girl's voice was high and tight and barely there. "Thank you, Tifa." It made Tifa feel bad for the brief unkind thoughts she'd had earlier and she wiggled until she'd managed to turn herself around to hug Aerith. Aerith clung. Jessie, apparently took that as a sign and joined the hug, wrapping her arms around them both. Over Aerith's head, she gave Tifa a chipper grin.

"Lighting's shot to hell," she explained why the area they were in was so dim, with no light to spare to illuminate the opening of the elevator. "But we're pretty close to the ground floor. And no monsters either so far."

"Good," Tifa couldn't help turning her head though to look worriedly at the elevator shaft.

Where was Cloud?

As if reading her mind, Aerith whimpered against her shoulder and Tifa had to struggle to understand the words:

"Sometimes they stay behind. So the rest of the team can get away safely. Like Z-Zack did. Even though he promised me we'd see each other at the end."

"No!" Tifa pulled away from the pile of other girls and spun toward the door. It wasn't fair. She'd only left him because he was supposed to follow!

She didn't leave friends behind. Not ever.

She was almost back to the opening, thinking that climbing up was going to take forever so she'd better start, when Barret suddenly grabbed her and hauled her back.

"Incoming!" he bellowed and she was suddenly aware of the quickly growing howling, screaming, wailing multitude of noise plunging down the shaft. It was like listening to a train coming and she flinched against Barret – but she forced herself to keep her eyes open.

There was a resounding crash, as if one of the vending machines had been thrown down the shaft – and then a blur of howling red came shooting out of the darkness. Single gold eye huge, wailing, Red flew passed. Tifa had a second to register that – and then there was a blur of gold and blue and skin that dove through afterward.

Cloud!

"Move! Move!"

His order didn't have to be repeated because they all reacted instinctively to his tone and Tifa found Barret hauling her along by the hand as he bolted away from the elevator shaft. She had time to snap her head around and spot Aerith sprinting ahead of her and then there was a crash so resounding that it made the ground heave under the soles of her boots hard enough to knock her off her feet. She went tumbling –

And wasn't overly surprised when she felt a body hit hers and wrap her securely in it's arms.

"Cloud…"

In the noise and chaos, her sigh was too soft to hear – but he hummed, deep and low in his throat against her anyway. Not caring what it looked like, she wrapped her arms tightly around him and buried her face against his shoulder. They stopped skidding across the floor but he didn't let her go.

She was glad. She didn't want to let him go either.

"It's okay, Tifa. I'm here. You didn't leave me behind," the low rumble of his voice was intimate and just for her and she relaxed into both that and the warmth. Against her she felt him stir but his arms didn't loosen their secure hold on her and she didn't look up as he asked:

"You okay, Hong Kong?"

"Sufficiently," the growly, accented voice sounded somewhere to the left. It sounded a bit raw.

"You make a good air raid siren," there was a distinctive dry humor in Cloud's comment and a snort was his answer. Cloud shifted a little more but he shifted her with him. She wasn't quite lying on top of him anymore.

"Everyone else?"

"I'm okay." Aerith's voice somewhere further into the darken room and the sound of fabric shifting.

"Me too. I think I broke my gun though. I can't see so I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be in two pieces." Jessie's voice couldn't seem to decide if it was amused or worried. Cloud gave a grunt.

"We'll get you another. Hey?"

"Frak! That was awesome!" Barret sounded as if he was picking himself up off the ground. "You came down that shaft like lightning! Can't believe your knees aren't up around your ears! And that that snot monster didn't land on top of ya!"

Cloud made another noise and muttered:

"Me too."

Tifa's eyes were just widening in realization at what he'd risked in the hopes an avatar body was strong enough, when Aerith asked in a panic:

"Tifa! Where's Tifa?"

She opened her mouth to answer but Cloud beat her to it. His voice was low and calm and his arms tightened around her just a bit.

"Right here with me. She's fine."

There was a moment of silence and Tifa felt her cheeks burn. Until Jessie chirped:

"Is she snuggly?"

"Jessie – " Tifa grit it out through her teeth just as Cloud calmly answered:

"Yes."

"Cloud – "

"Well, you are," he commented mildly, tightening his arms a bit more to stop her half-hearted struggles to untangle herself from him. It was wrong… but she gave up with a sigh and relaxed into him again.

Then there was the sound of metal and a barely there clicking. A small flame from a lighter barely illuminated the darkness deeper into the building. A famliar voice drawled:

"Didn't know you were a snuggler, babe. That mean I get hugs for showin' up? Yo."


	10. Chapter 10

_for everyone that reviewed and I haven't answered yet - I'm sorry. I was working on this and thought you might not mind the prioritization. That said - this is a lousy gift for Cloud's birthday and so I'll have something better by the 19th cause I'm giving the boy the entire stretch between the two to celebrate his birthday. Guy deserves it._

Chapter 10:

When she squirmed to get off of him, Cloud's first, automatic response was to tighten his arms around her and spread his hands over the vast amounts of soft skin her outfit offered him.

She was right where she belonged and he didn't see any reason for her to leave.

Then his head kicked in and he let her go even if it narrowed his eyes and the palms of his hands tingled in protest. She didn't even hesitate as she wiggled off of him and in response he rolled off of his back and into a crouch, hand catching at the hilt of his sword. Action was a good replacement for emotion and he'd learned to rely on it a long, long time ago. The lighter flicked out when Tifa unexpectedly threw her arms around its holder instead of punching him. In the now complete darkness however, Cloud found that his eyesight shifted into shades of gray and he could still see at about the same level a NOD gave him - without the weight and eventual headache. It was a nice surprise but it also gave him a view of the fact his girl was hugging some lanky stranger that looked suspiciously like -

"Swift!"

Brows coming down, Cloud straightened. That looked suspiciously like... Swift?

Who the _hell_ was Swift?

He reached down absently to pull Jessie to her feet in the dark and then moved forward to repeat the gesture for Aerith. She clung to his hand but in the dark, he couldn't blame her. He was pretty sure he - and maybe Hong Kong - were the only two with decent eyesight.

"Tifa -"

He wasn't possessive. He had no right to be possessive. A forgotten childhood friendship and a sympathetic offer in a prison cell didn't give him any right to care if she was in another man's arms. Even if he did have the sudden desire to treat the man as hostile.

"Missed you too, babe, yo," the other man was saying and Tifa turned a beaming face blindly toward Cloud and the others in the darkness and Cloud knew - he was never going to be able to deny her something that made her so happy just because he was a selfish prick.

"It's Swift," Tifa took a step in the dark toward the sound of Cloud's voice, still smiling and looking more hopeful than he'd seen her look in a long time. "He's my gamer!"

The lanky red-head gave a casual salute in the dark.

"Yo."

The lighter flicked back on now that the other man's arms weren't full of Tifa. Cloud squinted against the sudden flare and his eyesight settled into the more common version he was used to. He would have held his hand out to Tifa the way she half looked as if she would catch in answer except Aerith was still clinging to one hand and his other was full of sword. Instead he stepped in closer to give the other man a careful once over and he grunted in answer. Hey You filled in the appropriate question.

"Your gamer? That's crazy! How he'd get in?"

The red head shrugged, looking for all the world like Reno.

"'Jacked one of the templates." The man squinted at Cloud. "White's a cold man, but he can hack like hell. Yo."

Cloud felt the tight lines of his lips relax, just a little.

"Still, I haven't got much time," Swift got straight to the point. "I'm just hooked up with a clunkly old head piece. You already know the system's been hacked and infected. Got a virus the size of a mother fucker running through it. We can't pull you guys out because it's - yo - taken over some of the systems in your tubes. It's not messing with the life support an' we've got a wall in place now in case it tries but it's doin' something weird to the pods we can't quite figure out yet and we ain't got any of the support doctors with us. Yet. Black's workin' on that. Good news is we've managed to keep the jerks from getting to the room your tubes are actually in and we've taken it over, as well as hacked back into the system from there. Me 'n White are tryin' to unravel the codes to take the system back over again, yo."

"Taken over the room?" Cloud asked, mind collecting and sorting away the facts for later, emotionless as it ran.

"Turns out there are some goons that showed up with guns about the same time the virus activated. We don't know how many but one of 'em at least loves the sound of his own voice 'cause he's taken over the building's intercom and 's 'broadcastin' regularly, yo. Usual crazy talk. Black says the voice sounds familiar but he can't figure out from where. Hey - " he looked at Cloud, "Your guy got some crazy military training or something? 'Cause he's totally taken over the defenses and I don't even know how he smuggled a coupla handguns into the building much less why he thought it was something he needed to do in the first place, yo."

Cloud ignored the looks from the others and, in Hey's case, the mad grin.

"He's a computer tech," he answered flatly before prompting: "Outside help?"

"Maybe for them but we haven't found out. We got the police outside the building on our side but the nuts have an entire live audience as hostage, not to mention the owner of the company, various techs, doctors, etc. Yo. We can't tell much of what's goin' on in the rest of the building but where we're holed up we got White, Black, me an' Mace, Volvo and Shucks, an' Lily. And lady," he turned to look at Aerith. "Lily's once creepy as hell guy, yo."

Aerith beamed.

"What demands are the terrorists making?" Cloud pulled them back into focus. Swift looked at him and shrugged.

"We can't tell, yo. Mr. I'm-so-fond-of-my-own-voice keeps yammerin' on about a 'reunion' and everyone becomin' one. Black says that's a bad thing. Like we couldn't guess, yo. But Mr. Talk is all about gettin' his wiggly little palms on you guys. He's threatenin' the hostages if we don't give ourselves up and let him inta the room."

Cloud just snorted and Swift frowned.

"Yeah, not like we're doin' that. Black's all about his 'we don't negotiate with terrorists'. He's over dramatic but - yeah, we ain't playin' by Mr. Talk-a-lot's rules. You guys are our priority, yo."

"... what about the audience?" Tifa asked softly and Swift turned to her with unflinching eyes.

"When we came onta this program, we gave our loyalty to our actors. Not the company an' not the show. We promised we'd back you guys all the way to the end. Ain't one of us that's changed their mind on that, babe. Told ya I'd keep ya safe, didn't I? Yo. Damn it! I hate that computer glitch. Yo."

"Game plan for us while we're in?" Cloud asked flatly and Swift turned back to him.

"White's tryin' to hack a safe house for you. Make a safe place outside of the virus but still inside the game for you guys to safely wait. Right now, we're still in the 'tryin' stage. So, we're keepin' 'em at bay so until then and it's run and tag for you guys, yo. Just - don't die."

There was something in the inflection of the way the red-head said it that had Cloud's blue eyes snapping up to fix on him. It was a mild change in tone but… Cloud had been around people talking about serious death long enough to know that change. His eyes met the other man's in the flickering light and, even in a second hand avatar, he didn't like what he saw in that pale blue.

Someone had already died in the game... and Biggs and Rufus were still missing.

"All right," Cloud turned to his team. "We're moving out and we're leaving Midgar. Swift, the program's weakness and its strength is the size of the world. We're going to be mobile targets, make it harder for the virus to solidify around us long enough to do real damage. Can you swing healing, magic, weapons or supplies?"

"Magic's harder but we can slip in little things like weapons, potions and supplies easier. And faster too since we can cache them and then just dump them when you get near a spot. We'll get you covered, yo."

"What about communication with our gamers? Are you coming with us?"

"Unfortunately, no," Swift grumbled. "Can't even move offa this spot or I lose my connection, yo. But we're working on it. An' we'll see about hijacking more temp avatars along the way too."

"All right," Cloud gave the other man a nod. Then he looked at his team. They looked everything from trusting to excited to worried to scared. And it made him pause to realize that Tifa was the one that looked the most scared. Gentle, he pried his fingers out of Aerith's hand and held them out for Tifa.

"Come here," he spoke softly because something in her seemed almost... breakable at the moment. Her eyes were huge in the dim light as she stepped forward without hesitation and slid her palm against his. He pulled her close without thinking about it, tucking her into his side and gave Swift a glare over the top of her head at the other man's warning look.

"Are the monitors still active?" He ignored everything but the immediate. "How many people have access to our actions and what we talk about?"

"You're still transmitting. Mr. Talks-too-much wants everyone to know what he's doin'. Whatever that is, yo. 'Cept the virus tends to lose track of you guys and focus on its monsters. Right now, audience is starin' at..." he paused. "Bottom of the elevator shaft, yo. But it focuses on the spots you're supposed to be in. It's expectin' you to follow the game, yo."

Cloud had absolutely no intention of doing so and he hadn't for a while. He gave Swift a nod.

"Tell Black not to do anything stupid. Tell White I'm counting on him."

"Black keeps callin' you 'PC'," the other man sounded annoyed. "An' smirkin' when he does it."

"Tell him he's an idiot."

"Tell Mace I'm rooting for her. And you too, Swift," Tifa interrupted and got a cheeky grin in response. Only Cloud felt the way her hands were clinging to the front of his shirt where their bodies hid it. While the others gave their own messages to Reno to take back, he slid his hand down to the small of her back and pressed, coaxing her body closer into his.

Why was she so frail feeling? Things were bad, but – something else was wrong and he couldn't – his mind traced backward, trying to figure out when it had started and –

"…shit."

It was even more indication that, instead of moving or questioning his hissed word, she simply seemed to want to snuggle in even closer. The fingers of his other hand tightened on the handle of his sword. Voice very soft under Hey's as he talked a confusing gamer slang to be relayed to the two that were apparently his gamers, Cloud asked:

"Who's in the audience, sweetheart?"

Against him, her shoulders seemed to sag and her voice was muffled as she answered:

"My fiancé."

In the dark, Cloud shut his eyes.

He'd known. He'd read the files. He'd just –

He hadn't wanted to think about it. About another man holding her, smoothing his hands over her. Another man she smiled at the way she smiled at him. Another man with more right to her than he'd ever had or ever would have.

Fuck whoever it was for taking a spot that a little scrawny lost boy had once dared to dream was going to be his one day.

And Cloud might as well add that curse to himself too. Because he'd told himself he was over her and he'd sworn to himself it wasn't going to matter.

"Swift – " he cut in on Aerith's detailed instructions regarding a flower business and Lily and the red head turned to look at him.

"New game plan. Tell Black he's got a new PC. We want Tifa's fiancé under wing before things go down."

"What? You mean he's – we can't go snatchin' people, yo!"

The very edge of Cloud's lips shifted.

"You'd be surprised what Black can do. Just relay the message."

"Okay, okay. Consider it done, chief. Yo."

"Good. Then we're done. Let's move out, people."

He didn't pause to listen for Aerith's protest and he didn't bother look back at the avatar they were leaving behind. His mission was to get his team out of here and they'd already wasted enough time. He gently shifted Tifa away from his side.

Concentrate on the mission. Survive. Find an extract point or extract yourself. It was time to focus on what was really at hand and stop dreaming about things that had never stood a chance long before this game had ever brought him back into a certain beautiful, soft girl's life.

He'd failed her before. She'd gotten hurt when those bullies had been after him.

He wouldn't fail her again.

But at the moment it was a little too painful to be near her either.

Once they were out of here, he was going to disappear from her life again. And this time he'd make damn sure he stayed that way.


	11. Chapter 11

_so - happy second birthday for Cloud - 'cause a single birth day is just too short considering all the poor guy's gone through. Again, a rough chapter but I wanted to get it out in time. Next update probably won't be this quick but it won't be as long as that very bad hold over previously. Enjoy! now if you'll excuse me, it's dinner time.  
_

Chapter 11:

He was avoiding her.

She knew why and she understood.

It still made her heart ache in her chest.

If anything though, that empty, hollow feeling just reminded her why she was getting married in the first place. It was to avoid anything like that. She'd already done this once before and it was nothing that she ever wanted to go through again. The ache now was nothing compared to what it could be, she already knew that from experience, and she had promised herself that she was never going to let that happen to herself again.

She was just being sensible.

She did owe him an apology though. She'd - she's gotten caught up in the moment and she hadn't expected her emotions to start threading into the situation with him. Somewhere, ridiculously early on apparently, she'd started to let herself slip around him and she should have been better than that. She'd led him on and that was cruel.

She didn't - she very much didn't want to do anything to ever hurt him. For all his competency and strength… he seemed - his eyes looked - very young…

She'd make it right. She'd said she'd be his friend and that meant fixing things between them. Now that he knew she had a fiancé, he'd stop flirting with her - stop touching her…

He'd stop and they could be friends. Just friends. Friends without… all the touching…

"Looks serious."

"Hm?" Tifa looked over at Jessie. The other girl had been trudging next to her since they'd gotten out of Midgar - minus the car and Cloud's fancy bike, neither of which had showed up to be swiped but it did keep them from having to deal with any challenges or battles on the way out the door. Against her thighs, tall grass swished and as a country girl, Tifa appreciated the change more than she would have expected. She also had to keep reminding herself that the smell of the sun warmed grass and the low drone of insects and the familiar feel of uneven ground under her feet wasn't real.

"Whatever you're contemplating," Jessie supplied. "You've had your brows all scrunched up for so long I was starting to worry they'd gotten stuck that way."

Tifa gave her a smile.

"Just thinking."

"About your fiancé?" Jessie looked sympathetic until she added: "Or about Cloud?"

Against her better judgment, Tifa's eyes strayed to the front of their group. Cloud was swinging along with a loose easy stride that looked as if he could walk all day that way. Red trotted along at his side and from time to time they'd have a brief discussion. It looked comfortable and also seemed to result in minute changes to their direction of travel. On his other side, Aerith swung along, pick skirt swishing, flowers she'd darted off to gather in her hands.

Tifa realized that she wished the other girl would get tired and start to whine but Aerith gave no indication. In fact, all of them seemed fit and ready for travel in their avatars and while Tifa was thankful for that, she was suspicious about it as well. What - exactly - had the virus done to them while they lay helpless in their tubes?

Next to her Jessie cleared her throat and Tifa pulled her attention back to the other girl.

"Hm?"

"Never mind," Jessie sounded sympathetic. "You kinda answered my question."

Trudging behind them, Barret let out a cough.

"Seems to me, you owe a serious apology to 'em."

Tifa nodded even as Jessie hissed at him.

"I do," she agreed. "I should have been more forceful in telling him 'no'. I wasn't and it wasn't right."

It was Barret's turn to clear his throat.

"Uh - I was talkin' 'bout your betrothed, Teef."

"oh," she cringed a little and exhaled. "Yes. Him too."

Next to her, Jessie absently pulled up one of the long blades of grass and it even made the slightly plastic sound that real grass did.

"So… what's he like? The guy you're getting hitched to?"

Tifa paused and her brows came down again. How to explain him…?

"He's nice. Very calm, very sensible. Steady. He's very polite. My father would have liked him. He's dependable. When he says he's going to do something or be somewhere he is. Always. Reliable."

"Sounds great," Jessie didn't sound exactly enthused. "But wouldn't it be easier to just buy a dog."

"Jessie!" Tifa reprimanded and the other girl looked at her.

"What? Tifa, you make him sound like a german shepherd. Where's the 'he's a great kisser'? And the 'he makes me laugh?"

"How about the 'he understand me?'," Barret added and Tifa gave them both a look for being unhelpful.

"We understand each other quite well. And he's not a dog. He's a very nice man who cares about me that I care about too. "

"Sooo - he's _not _a great kisser?"

"Jessie!"

"What? I'm just saying - Tifa, I haven't heard you say 'love' yet and your eyes don't go all soft and weak and glowy when you talk about him."

Tifa gave the other girl a look and it certainly wasn't soft or glowy or weak.

"'Glowy' isn't a word and even if it was, I wouldn't want my eyes going that way anyway. Why are we talking about my personal life when we should be thinking about ways to get back to it?"

"Yeah, already thought about that. Got nothing. Want to talk about you instead."

Tifa gifted Jessie with a flat look.

"Me too," Barret volunteered. "I'm bored."

Tifa huffed out a breath.

"I have less problems with the kids I teach."

"So…" Jessie prodded. "How did you hook up with the 'nice' guy?"

"He works security for a large company," Tifa didn't mind talking about that part and she hoped it would be enough to satisfy her two suddenly overly nosey friends. "I taught his niece last year and he used to pick her up after school. He needed a companion for a big dinner party his company was hosting for its employees and since we already got along I agreed to be his date. The rest kind of went on from there."

Jessie was watching her with narrow eyes. Usually at this point in her story listeners assumed 'fairy tale romance' complete with a night of magic opening the couple's eyes to who they had sitting next to them. It was a cute assumption that Tifa never bothered challenge. They _had _come to a mutual understanding after that night. She had no problems with the way it had worked out. Jessie however was already prejudiced and it wasn't in some faceless stranger's favor.

"I can't help but notice a lack of the phrase 'swept me off my feet' in there, Teef."

Knowing better, Tifa still had the knee-jerk reaction and snorted. Jessie's eyes widened and then narrowed. Tifa knew that look. It was the reason she never tried to explain her arrangement to anyone. They always had different priorities. Tifa held up a hand to forestall.

"Jessie, really, I'm okay. No one's forcing me to get married. I'm perfectly happy just the way things are. I know what I'm doing. Really."

The other woman deflated a little but she was still frowning. Behind them, Barret asked:  
"So are we all getting invited to the weddin'?"

"Of course," Tifa smiled. "All my friends can come."

"I like cake," Barret grinned. "So when's the date?"

Tifa hesitated.

"We haven't really set one yet."

It was a mistake to admit to because Barret rumbled something triumphant sounding and Jessie's eyes lit again with an 'ah ha!' light. Tifa exhaled in exasperation and picked up her speed a little bit to get away from them.

'I like cake'. She couldn't believe she'd fallen for that. She'd have to remember that Barret was more devious than he pretended. Behind her she swore she could hear the sound of them exchanging high fives. It made her sigh.

It wasn't as if she didn't understand their thoughts. She herself would have protested if any of her girl friends married for anything but love and she would have been heart broken to hear one of the children she taught think that way. It was just…

She'd already had her heart tangled up once and - she still didn't think she was over it. Which was stupid considering how many years it had been and the fact that she'd only been a child at the time it had happened. But - it had happened and sometimes she still felt the old scar of it stretching too tight. She wasn't willing to go through that again. She honestly didn't know if she could and still stay the person she wanted to be. She realized that, perhaps, it made her a coward for not wanting to try again - but she'd never found anyone who tempted her even remotely to try, so it had never been a temptation. She thought - she should be allowed to be a coward at least once and this seemed like the best thing to be that way over.

That didn't excuse or forgive her for the way she'd acted toward Cloud though. She just -  
She'd forgotten.

He'd made her forget to be safe.

It was the game's fault. It took her out of herself and her usual environment, made her life someone else's story. It was Cloud's fault for being so persistent and not backing off when she protested. It was Jessie and Mace's fault for being encouraging.

But really, in the end, Tifa knew it was no one's fault but her own. She could be honest with herself about that at least. Something inside her pulled toward Cloud and she hadn't been – she'd been listening to that instead of her head. The last time she'd done that… she'd been young. And she'd learned her lesson. It was always better to lead with your head. It made sure the people you ended up with were who you thought they were – instead of who you'd _felt_ as if they were that had ended up being a lie.

"Tifa." Red greeted her now that her slightly faster pace had brought her closer and Aerith let out a muffled high pitched sound and leaped over to wrap both of her arms around Cloud's.

"I thought I saw a snake," the flower girl gasped and Cloud didn't pause in his stride as he replied with a:

"Don't step on it."

Then to her surprise, he turned to Tifa and added calmly:

"We should be putting out enough vibrations to warn them we're coming but now that you're up at the front, keep your eyes open all the same."

Just that. Calm and rational and then his eyes shifted back to the front and that was the end.

No flirty comment and Tifa was almost tempted to provide one herself to point the lack out – except this was the new way of doing things and it was better. Aerith was still wrapped around Cloud's arm, somehow managing to walk while hanging on and not impeding him either. Tifa wondered how she did that and a small, petty part of her brain offered the word 'practice'. With a quiet exhale, she looked down at Red. He'd lost his 'booties' once they were outside and looked much more secure in his momentum now. When he'd first gotten the avatar, moving four legs instead of two had taken him a lot of concentration and getting used to. She wondered, vaguely, what it would feel like for him to go back to two legs at the end of all of this.

"Red," she paused on it and then offered: "I know Swift mentioned Barret's gamers – but not yours…"

There was a soft 'ffft' noise from Red's muzzel that sounded strange and awkward considering his lack of lips and he grunted.

"I am not alarmed, Tifa. My gamers were provided for me by the corporation. We did not form a bond the way many of you have. There was too much technicality involving this avatar's body. And I do believe that one of them found it amusing that someone of my nationality should be intergrated into a beast's body. I do not wish them harm – but their lack does not impede me. I much prefer being available to the gamers who are currently in control of the situation."

"Oh," she hoped it didn't sound as surprised as she felt. She'd relied rather heavily on Swift and Macy while adjusting to the situation and during the game. She didn't know what she would have done without their comforting presence nearby. Because she'd already learned that he didn't mind during their training, she reached down and scratched where his mane began to crest at the top of his head. Red's single gold eye slitted and he made a rumbling sound deep in his chest, slowing down a bit more next to her to make more space available. She wondered if, in human form, he'd forget and purr long after the game was over. The thought made the edges of her lips curve. She was pretty sure the 'game' was off – but she hoped that, at the end, they'd get some kind of compensation. Bruce deserved the chance to open his own import shop.

"Sydney or Melborne?" she asked and he must have been thinking along the same lines because he answered:

"Melborne. It feels more – artistic. I think a trade house there would do well with high end product."

In front of them, Cloud's head lifted, like a wolf with a scent and he stopped, eyes narrowing. The rest of the group, Tifa included, stopped as well and her legs protested the break in their routine.

"Hong Kong?" he murmured and Red moved forward on silent pads to stand next to him, tail twitching and somehow not setting the tall grass on fire. After a long, silent minute that she knew was about to be broken by Barret fidgeting, first Red's head and a second later, Cloud's, turned in the same direction. A hand motion from Cloud was descriptive enough even though they weren't trained, and it had the rest of the group sinking down into the grass. A few more silent minutes and Cloud dropped to a crouch, pushing the grass aside to create a line of vision to becon Barret and Jessie to join the rest of them. His voice was low.

"Something's moving out there. Big and mechanical. I don't have any desire to find out if I can pick up the ability to shoot rockets out of my butt. Red and I will go find out if it's monsters or Shinra or something else. The rest of you settle in, keep an ear out and try to relax. Don't come looking for us. You think enough time has passed, you stay low and zig-zag your way to the Chocobo farm. We'll catch up. Tifa, you're in charage. Hey, you're her support. Understood?"

There was a quiet chorus of 'yes' and Tifa had to admit, she was tempted to answer 'yes, sir' the way Barret automatically did. Cloud gave a last nod and then in a half crouch he and Red slipped deeper into the tall grass and disappeared. Tifa blinked.

He hadn't looked at her before he left. It shouldn't hurt the way it did.

For a long minute it was silent and everyone stared at each other. Finally, Tifa shook herself mentally. This was no different from being the teacher to her class and sitting around uselessly was always just asking for eventual trouble. Instead she looked up and around and after a minute, she turned to Barret.

"Does it make sense to find a hollow and wait there?"

Cloud had mentioned monsters doing it and it if worked for monsters to help them hide then why not them too. Barret thought about it and then started to grin.

"You got it, squad leader."

It wasn't exactly the honorific she was used to but Tifa thought it probably fit as well as any and in a short amount of time they'd found a low spot in the ground that fit them all comfortably and had settled in. Barret and Jessie were cleaning their guns, mostly under Barret's surprisingly knowledgable instructions and Tifa had settled in where she could keep an ear on the direction Cloud and Red had gone as well as a fairly decent look out through a natural break in the grass. The sun was high and it wasn't a bad place to rest.

Aerith slipped over to where Tifa was resting on her heels and settled in. Tifa gave her a sideways look and after a minute, Aerith softly asked:

"What did you do to Cloud?"

Something in Tifa had been expecting the question but she was surprised by how honestly concerned the other woman sounded. It made her answer honestly instead of avoiding the question the way she'd thought she would.

"I'm engaged."

Aerith looked at her and for a moment the other girl looked… wistful? Then her slim brows came down and she shook her head.

"You really shouldn't have said anything, Tifa. Cloud's the best suited to what's going on. It doesn't hurt anything to let him be interested in you, you know. Once the game's over – " her shoulders shrugged. "What happens in the game doesn't matter outside. Nobody cares what they do wearing a borrowed avatar."

Tifa couldn't help but look at the other girl. She considered herself practical but Aerith sounded… cynical. It – made her wonder what had happened to her the last time she'd played, and won.

"It matters to me," she said and Aerith shook her head with a frown.

"You shouldn't let it. It's a good way to forget what's really important. All this – " she gestured with a delicate hand. "It's not real. So it doesn't matter."

Tifa watched her. After a long moment, she softly asked:

"Aerith… aren't you trying to get Cloud's attention?"

"Yes," the other girl said it without hesitation, eyes clear and calm. "He's going to survive this and I want him to help me survive too. Besides, he's very attractive and his body feels nice."

Tifa blinked and wasn't sure if she should frown or not.

"I – " she managed and Aerith shook her head.

"I don't mind competition. And no guy is going to lose the chance to have more than one girl after him. I don't care who 'wins' him at the end. I just know he'll keep us both around for his ego. So it's okay if you want to go after him too. We obviously play the game differently so I'm not worried."

It was so far outside of the way Tifa's thoughts had been going that she was left blinking slowly for a moment. It – she couldn't disagree – exactly. Aerith was approching this as a contest. Which is was. Tifa however had been approaching it as if it was…

…life?

When she looked at it that way… Aerith's way was the proper one. Whatever showed on her face, the other girl gave her a smile that never seemed to reach her eyes and shrugged.

"Think about it, all right. Though – you've kind of blown it with him already."

With that Aerith moved back over to join the others and Tifa shook her head at Jessie's curious, concerned glance. Aerith… had certainly given her a lot to think about.

And certainly put a lie on the things she'd said in the cells when this had all still been a 'game'. Then again, who was Tifa going to tell? With a sigh, she let herself slump a little and settled down more comfortably in the grass.

For something she'd expected to challenge her abilities… she'd never expected these kinds of challenges.

"Don't you dare."

The voice was so low and so close that Tifa jerked and then froze. It was a failing of hers. Her father had hated screaming and she'd gotten into the habit of doing the exact opposite of what would have alerted the others to trouble. Her head did snap around though and she blinked as a pair of tropic blue eyes followed by a pollen dusted glove that moved the grass near her spot aside. Cloud unwound himself from the impossibly low crouch he must have been in and she saw Red slunk low to the ground, still mostly hidden in the tall grass behind him.

"Cloud!" The spoken word was hushed to match the situation but she hadn't been paying attention and the pleasure and relief at seeing him again was blatantly obvious in it. She watched his mouth relax and curve just at one side. Something about it reminded her of how deep the ocean blue of his eyes could get.

"You missed me," it was a rumbling tease and yet it was deeper than that too and it made her shoulder sink a little as her heart hurt for him in her chest.

"I missed you," she admitted and then realized she was supposed to be sticking to boundaries now so she quickly added: "And Red. You're my friends."

There was a certain wry light that moved into his eyes and the soft curl of his mouth became a quiet smirk.

"Red's not nearly as good a kisser as I am," he stated calmly before moving past her to settle down on his heels in the middle of their group.

And Tifa went bright red.

How much of the conversation she'd had earlier with Jessie had he heard exactly?


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

He wasn't going to let her get away with it.

Leaning on the wooden railing, watching her and Jessie with the chocobos, Cloud pressed his weight into the wood a little bit more, listening to the creak and mulled over his new intel. And he didn't like it. It wasn't right, for one. Tifa was light and laughter and smiles. She was too tender-hearted for her own good but he somehow hoped that never changed despite the pain it probably - had obviously - caused her in the past. She was meant for swooning and some guy sweeping her off her feet, for girlish giggles over some guy's stupidity on her behalf and for soft, melting eyes that pooled liquid and carried her whole impossibly deep heart under the very surface of them.

She was also, he thought, meant for bruised lips and love marks on her pale skin where her clothing couldn't hide it from the world. And in places where only one man would ever seen them too.

Absent, he scratched at the back of his neck.

What she wasn't meant for was some suit who opened doors for her and kept his hands to himself and made her feel... comfortable.

"Looks like you ate something sour."

Cloud slid his eyes over to glance at the man without turning his head as Barret joined him.

"Might have," he acknowledged after a minute.

"Best cure for that is cake."

Cloud gave Barret a level look that questioned his mental health but Barret was already off in his own world as he muttered:

"Of course, the cake is a lie..."

Cloud debated just letting the other man go but finally decided it wasn't safe and cleared his throat.

"Barret."

"...delicious and moist...huh?" Barret broke off from... wherever he'd been in his head and looked at the shorter man next to him. Cloud waited patiently, face expressionless and after a moment, Barret snapped to.

"Oh, yeah. Right. I was comin' over here to tell you that the hicks that run this place say we gotta catch our own chocobos an' they wanna sell us stuff for too much money."

Cloud made a grunting noise and looked back at the girls in the paddock.

"I think that's going to take too much time," he stated after a long moment. "I think the chocobos we've got here are just fine."

"We can't use these!" Barret protested. "Kid says they belong to someone already!"

Cloud glanced back at the barn and where Aerith was haggling for fresh food for them. Damned if they didn't need that kind of stuff now. No one got hungry but they all seemed to suffer the results of not eating, growing weaker and shakier the longer they went without. It - hadn't been a pleasant thing to find out.

"Just think of it as - " Cloud had to search his brain. What was his nephew playing these days? Something wholesome and moral and character building that was going to help him be a better, more productive member of society. Right. "Grand Theft Auto. But with chocobos."

Barret started to snort laughter.

"Grand Theft Chocobo?"

The edge of Cloud's mouth shifted upward.

"Just like that. Think you can ride one of those critters with your gun hand?"

Barret frowned.

"Might be rough, steerin' with the reins."

"Don't worry. You can ride with Aerith. Something tells me she knows how to handle those things."

"Lady's just fulla surprises, ain't she?" Barret asked and Cloud shrugged.

"She knows what she's doing." His eyes narrowed slightly. And who she wasn't doing...

Barret cut in on his thoughts.

"So what we gonna do with the old guy and kids?" The bigger man shifted uncomfortably. "Nothin' violent or nothin', right?"

"You mean 'what are we going to do with the pixel plot points'?" Cloud corrected. Then he shrugged. "You can keep an eye on them in the cottage while we saddle the chocobos. We'll leave money, for all the good that will do them considering they're computer programs running on a loop." Sometimes you did the 'right thing' for yourself and your own peace of mind more than it really deserved to be done. Cloud understood that - but he also wasn't about to let it get in the way of keeping his own team mobile and alive. Especially considering he didn't have to worry about foreign relations or the impact on his actions on foreign affairs. Barret paused to look at him and Cloud ignored it. Finally the other man offered a thoughtful:

"Bet you're one scary ass dude to meet in the bush in the middle of the night."

Cloud just made a non-committal noise in his throat. After a minute more, voice a little gruffer, Barret asked:

"You're not gonna let her go through with it, are ya? The getting married and all."

Cloud finally turned his head enough to look full on at the other man. After a long moment of his silence, Barret shifted his feet.

"S'just not right, is all. She's too nice to marry some dude we don't know that don't make her happy."

While Cloud agreed with that part and entirely so, he couldn't help but wonder - when had Barret decided that he, Cloud, was the one that should be responsible for fixing that?

Even if, frankly, he, Cloud, fully intended to.

"No," he shook his head and went back to watching her laughing as the chocobo butt it's head against her for more of her fingers scratching behind it's jaw. "I'm not going to let her go through with it."

Barret gave a satisfied grunt. Cloud let him rest a minute and then jerked his head toward the house.

"Go tell the old man to stay put. I'm going to go take care of the kids."

Barret gave him a look, as if he was both relieved he'd gotten the old man and worried about the methods Cloud was going to use on kids that barely came up to his hip. He left, headed for the cottage however. Cloud reached back to tap the hilt of his sword and headed for the bar. Once inside, he shut the barn door and gestured to the two children running on prerecorded tracks. They were only secondaries and had the slight flat, immobile features to their faces but they were still the right size and spoke with children's voices. Cloud freed his sword and planted it in the dirt floor, moving away from it to where they were both watching him now with upturned faces. He sank down to a squat in front of them.

"My team needs chocobos and we don't have the time to catch our own. So we're taking yours. We'll leave money for them and we'll have them back before their owner gets here." Considering the 'owner' was a computer generated plot device with no actual corporal body, Cloud didn't feel in the least as if he was lying. "I'm sorry if this is scary. We'll be quick."

"Oh for pity's sake, Cloud. Just take the damned birds."

Cloud blinked and then his eyes narrowed as he focused on the face of the little girl.

"White, that's the creepiest ass thing you've done in a long time."

"I try," White's inflectionless voice came through the little girl's mouth. And then she smiled brightly up at Cloud. Who sighed and shook his head.

"Now stop playing 'big brother' and get moving," the little girl told him firmly. "I've rigged the birds as independent from the computer program. The virus is starting to spawn larger and uglier monsters however, so I would advise haste."

"Right," Cloud straightened. "Any advice on locations to head for."

White's voice was dry.

"Somewhere unexpected would be good."

"Thanks," Cloud's voice was just as dry and he moved over to pull his sword free. It was just too natural to resist spinning it before he slapped it on his back.

"Let's mosey."

The chocobos were easy to saddle, tame and intelligent. Sure the saddle was on secure and that the bird hadn't just been taking a deep breath to keep the girth loose, Cloud checked everyone else's rides and then swung himself up into the saddle of the one he'd chosen for himself. Shifting he finally managed to get his legs tucked in right. It reminded him of those scraggy ponies he'd ridden in Afghanistan. Except at least this time the saddles were leather instead of wood. He just hoped these birds held up as well as those horses had. A bit of experimenting had him getting the hang of how to steer - even if he didn't really trust any ride that functioned off of a brain that wasn't his, and turned the bird around to the rest of his team. Jessie was already on her own, looking more than competent and very pleased with herself. Red was crouched and miserable in front of her but they'd already decided it was better to save his energy and strength than have him try to keep up with the larger birds. The rest of the group was watching him however.

"Aerith, you take the reins. Barret rides pillion. Tifa, you're with me."

"But - what if I can't ride one of these?" Aerith protested and Cloud gave her a look. He'd done more research than just on one of the people he'd be playing with and his actions designed not to show that were starting to lose a point. He appreciated Aerith for her competence and her survival mentality. He was trying his damnest not to let his personal feelings influence any of his actions toward her.

"I have faith in you," he stated flatly. "Besides," her turned his attention on the silent member of their team that was looking so hesitantly up at him. "I promised Tifa I'd let her ride my chocobo."

Tifa's eyes went wide but instead of protesting he saw hesitation and... fear? in her eyes. Turning the bird, he leaned down an arm for her.

"Come on, sweetheart," he coaxed. "We've got a long way to go."

The hesitation was still there, but she caught his arm and scrambled up to sit on the chocobo behind him, arms winding around his waist. It didn't set everything in the world right, but it went a long way toward making sure he was going to try his damned to get it that way.

Aerith, it turned out, did know how to mount and handle a chocobo. He didn't remember her having that chance in the previous game - and yet he wasn't surprised at all.

"Follow my lead and stay close. Once we hit the swamp, don't slow down."

He gave his orders and as they raced away from the farm, Cloud didn't mention that his eyes had caught a looming dark on the horizon back the way they'd come.

Or that the caves were the only way onward and it was where he would have laid his ambush of a convoy if it was him.

It also didn't take him long to figure out that there was a world's difference between riding a horse and a chocobo. There was only one set of legs for instance and so the shift and gravity was different. There were also the feathers, which were surprisingly and distractingly soft. At least he could pretty much see over the head and plan where they were going.

"What are you muttering?"

The voice came from near his ear and he turned his head a little to look at Tifa. Both of her arms were around his waist to hang on and her chin was almost, but not quite, against his shoulder to watch where they were going. He hadn't realized he was muttering until she spoke but when she did he let out a soft sound.

"Practicing," he grunted and after a moment when he didn't volunteer anything else one of her fingers dug lightly into his side. He exhaled.

"I spent some time in Afghanistan. There are a lot of different dialects and languages and slurs of languages. I used to practice when I was riding to pass the time." He made a noise in his throat at being caught. "Guess it got to be a habit."

She made a soft sound against him and for a while that was all. Finally, as if she was tired of fighting it, the side of her head slumped to rest on his shoulder.

"I used to live near a military base. American," her voice was soft and he tried to keep his shoulders from tightening.

It hurt. Damn it, it was just a memory, old and worn at its edges.

It wasn't supposed to hurt, hearing her recount it in that quiet, small voice.

"Some people didn't like the fact there was a base. We didn't really understand why as kids but you still realized that something was going on, you know?" She paused again and he gave a grunt that he hoped sounded noncommittal. He knew. He knew too well. He remembered that heavy feeling in the air sometimes, the sick feeling in his stomach when he'd walk past certain stores or houses and the people inside would look out of those doors at him with those glass eyes. It hadn't all been that way and he'd been welcomed as the exact opposite in some places, smiles and practiced English and treats of small candies or a comic book. But… he remembered.

"There was a boy," her voice was even softer and only his exacting hearing let him catch it as she spoke against his shoulder. "He came from the base. His father was stationed there and he'd married a Japanese woman he'd met. I guess she wanted her son to go to a Japanese school instead of the one on the base for the Americans, because he ended up in my class."

Cloud was quiet. Waiting. And it felt as if he was holding his breath. She didn't add anything else though. His throat felt dry but he swallowed. After a long minute, staring ahead, he asked:

"Did you hate him?"

"What?" he felt her head come up and she leaned forward to try to look at his face but he kept it expressionless and fixed forward. He got a surprising punch against his side where her hand was resting.

"How could you ask that?" she sounded upset. "He was my friend. My –" she cut herself off. Cloud felt as if she was holding him by a thread.

"My best friend," she finished, tucking her face down against the back of his shoulder.

Cloud swallowed again and his throat felt tight. She wasn't going to offer anything else. He could tell. But – he had to ask.

"What happened to him, sweetheart?" his voice was low and he wasn't sure she heard it but he didn't know if he could manage to force himself to ask it again. She had though because, after a long pause, she finally answered and her voice was barren and hurt.

"He forgot about me…"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"Bull shit."

His voice was calm over the roar of the monster charging their way and Tifa couldn't help the:

"What?" that slipped out of her. Cloud brought his huge sword up and took the monster off at the knees. Blood splashed everywhere and Tifa brought her metal tip boot forward to stop the way it kept snapping its teeth and trying to claw forward across the rubble covered ground with only hands.

"I'm calling 'bull shit'," Cloud clarified just as calmly as he ducked low in one single, smooth move to dodge another swinging ball of iron, sword coming up to foul the chain. Tifa skid forward to land next to him and brought the sole of her kick snapping up and forward enough to impact in the creature's spongy, now vulnerable chest and sent it hurtling backward. Something with long, clicking legs and mandibles skittered suddenly out of a crack in the cave's wall near her and Cloud's arm around her waist caught her up and hauled her to the side as he brought his sword down, separating its multifaceted head from its body.

"Cloud – "

"No one, but particularly not a man, is going to forget about you, Tifa."

She blinked and almost forgot to duck as a chunk of rock went shooting past near her head as Red's magic literally turned a group of dangerously clustering monsters into fine mist. Cloud brought his sword in the way to deflect most of it and then waded forward again.

They were in the middle of the tunnels under the mountains that led through to the other side of the continent, the way-point between the Zolom swamps and Junon. To say that the caves were not only claustrophobic but also packed with monsters was probably an understatement. It also probably only added to the challenge that Cloud wanted to bring the chocobos. So their party was divided in half with Jessie and Aerith holding the chocobos and coming behind with Barret as protection and her, Cloud and Red at the front slowly clearing the monsters out of the way for the rest of the team. It was messy, bloody and an inch at a time. Everyone on the front line at least was covered in gore and rock dust, tired and running on determination as much as guts at this point.

And Cloud was thinking about something from her childhood that didn't even matter anymore.

"I don't look like this in real life," she felt compelled to point out as he brought his sword down, embedding it hard in something with too many legs and Tifa used his back as a ramp to kick up and over, boots crunching effectively into the duel monsters that were trying to crawl over their fallen brother to get to Cloud.

She was breathing hard and she knew the surge she felt was adrenaline. She wasn't sure how long it was going to last. But what was really bothering her, far back in her mind where she still had the silence to think, was that some of the moves she and Cloud were pulling off should have been impossible and came far too smoothly and easily to them. She'd never even thought of some of them before, just suddenly, there they were, available as she moved into the right position. Red's fire burned past as she dropped, searing through several swarms of giant insects and Cloud was there to move in front of her as her feet hit the ground and there was a split second in which she needed to reorient.

They had been good together when they'd started, a solid team of three. The constant fighting was making them shift like clockwork though. It was almost disturbing how quickly she was picking up on the small shifts and motions Cloud made before an attack and he seemed to react almost without realizing it to her moves as well. She couldn't tell if she was doing the same thing for Red or not simply because he mostly stayed behind them and cast magic.

Magic that just might run out and they had no idea about recharging… but if there was ever a time for it, now was definitely high on that list.

"Tifa – " Cloud began but then Red bellowed:

"Incoming!" and Cloud was catching her by the waist and pressing her back into the safety of a crevice, the front of his body hard against hers and shielding her from the roaring blast of Red's attack. Dirt and ceiling rained down in small chunks as the whirling sound of Red's passage damped out all other sound. Tifa knew she should have been noticing those facets a heck of a lot more than she was noticing the way Cloud's body was completely against hers. The fact they were both panting wasn't helping. His mouth must have been somewhere near her ear because his voice was low gravel against it and she tried not to shiver.

"I know. I was talking about you. You, who you are and the way you act and smile and laugh and touch and tease and go soft and sweet and warm and welcoming." His arm around her waist snugged her even closer. "You don't give up; you genuinely care. No man is going to forget that after he's had a taste." Past the heat she really wished she could blame on the fight, she suddenly realized one of his hands was against her ribs when his thumb, leather encased, rubbed over her exposed skin there. In the dark and dust and death, the world impossibly small and private, his quiet voice assured her:

"I wouldn't."

It made her chest feel tight and she wished she could just blame it on the dusty air. That way she could blame the way her eyes felt on it too. Because… she wanted to believe him – but if the most important friend she'd ever had found it so easy to forget about her when she wasn't around anymore – how much easier was it for people she knew less to forget her?

And it didn't help that she was realizing that she, very much, didn't want to deal with Cloud forgetting about her when this was all over. Trying to put mental – and emotional – space back between them, she pushed at his chest.

"Stop it," her voice didn't have the strength behind it to make it sound like she meant it. She didn't know that she had the strength to… or that she really meant it. "I'm engaged."

"Come on," he was suddenly shifting away and catching her hand to pull her back into the tunnel and further along. Red's attacks tended to clear wide paths for a short amount of time and each time he ran through, Tifa would follow Cloud at a hard run as far as they could get before the monsters slowed them back down to inching along.

They'd been doing this for what felt like a very, very long time. The sound their boots made fell a lot heavier now than they had originally.

She had no idea how many more of those charges Red had in him – or how much further the tunnels went on. She was trying, very hard, not to think about the possibility of the overwriting virus simply making them go around in circles. Cloud did a good job of cutting off that horrifying thought though as, boots pounding over the hard stone, he flatly answered:

"I know. You need to break it off with him."

"What?" her eyes went wide and she almost stumbled, except he was there to steady her and then pull her further along. Long, segmented bodies started to wriggle out of cracks in the floor just as they caught up to a shaky legged and panting Red and Cloud's sword and Tifa's boots went to work. As if they were talking about vehicle maintenance, Cloud repeated calmly:

"You need to break it off with him."

"What? No! Cloud – "

"He's not adding anything to your life by being in it. I've been in enough places in the world to know there are women that would kill to be able to chose to be single. You need to ditch the flotation device, Tifa."

His voice was a little stronger when he said it but there still wasn't much emotion behind his statement. They could have been discussing the weather. If Tifa wasn't so busy fighting, she would have had to resist the urge to stamp her foot like a child.

"I'm not going to hurt a perfectly nice man and break off my engagement because you say so, Cloud."

He grunted as he caught her by the waist, hold firm despite the fact that both of their skin was slippery with sweat, and spun her into a better attack position on his other side, sword swinging to block another iron ball. Green tingled across both of their skins as he cast some of their precious Restore magic across them all. Somewhere far behind them she thought she heard the muted, hollow sound of Barret's gun. There was a bit of a strain in Cloud's voice when he answered but it was hard to tell which reason it sounded that way.

"I didn't say to do it for me, Tifa. You need to do it for you."

It caught her off guard and Cloud had to lunge forward to bring his sword in the way of a monster swinging claws at her. With a little sound, she snapped herself out of it and threw herself back into the fight, fists, perhaps, more furious than they usually were. But…

_for_ her…?

It wasn't as if the concept was strange or she was surprised Cloud had said it. In fact, she thought she'd dealt with that idea before but… wasn't she with her fiancée 'for her'?

Wasn't that the point of being with someone?

And, why was now when it was suddenly occurring to her to even question that?

She knew the answer to the last one at least. Cloud. She'd been pretty sure she knew where her life was going – and been content with its course - until he'd barreled in.

She really needed to readjust her thinking to realize that it had been a bad thing…

With a quiet, annoyed noise of her own, she charged in to decimate something pink and tentacled as Cloud cut away the armor plated monster at its side. Why were things suddenly so confusing and why now? Now was definitely _not_ the time to be dealing with things like this. She knew where she wanted her life to go. She's planned it out, rationally and thoughtfully and she had decided what was best.

So why, suddenly – couldn't that be enough anymore?

She wanted it to be enough.

It scared her that she might want more because – if she did…

…what happened when she never reached it?

Teaching small children to reach for the stars – and having the courage to do so yourself… they were two very different things and, in the dusty, clogged tunnel, everything shadows and too fast moving shapes – she realized, for the first time –

This game was the first time in her memory that she'd done something unplanned and outside of what she'd mapped out for her life.

And look where it had gotten her.

Cloud's sword flashed upward and she rolled under it, breaking segmented limbs with a hard kick and then round-housing another creature into the wall where it burst, adding its stink to the already choking air.

She… she _liked_ who she was here.

The revelation shocked her – because it wasn't as if she hadn't liked who she had been at the start of this game. It was just – she liked who she was now better.

It just wasn't always comfortable.

Cloud caught most of a raking claw with the flat of his blade and the rest of it tore her skin and she quickly shook away whatever it was that she was trying to realize to concentrate on what was really going on. Even if, somehow, whatever was just starting to wake up inside her seemed more important.

Behind them, Red's voice, hoarse and raw, announced with surprising calm.

"I have no magic left."

Cloud's answer was just as calm. And sounded just the slightest bit hoarse itself.

"Not a problem. Guard our backs."

"Yes," it sounded… final.

Like a pact to die together.

Tifa's eyes narrowed. No. No, it wouldn't end like this. They weren't going to lose to a damn computer game. She wasn't –

They weren't going to lose what they'd become together.

It gave her a burst of energy, flooded her with just a sip more strength and she moved methodically into the fight, determined. Cloud was next to her and his great sword didn't slow or dip as they skid across unsteady ground and continued kedging inch by inch forward.

There was no sudden burst of daylight ahead though and the next turn in the tunnel just revealed more tunnel. The inches turned to centimeters and then even that had to stop as they focused on simply holding their own. Tingling green ran over her skin again but it was fainter than before and she noticed with a sinking heart that she was the only one it danced across. Next to her, almost shoulder to shoulder, Cloud was muttering under his breath and it took her a minute to realize – he was quietly calling the names of his gamers.

There was no answering static in her ears however and no familiar voices. From the way it was more litany than conversation, she guessed it was the same for him.

She missed a landing, foot skidding suddenly out from under her as her boot touched down and was so surprised that she got her hands out too late to catch herself. Cloud's hand was there at the last minute though, fingers wrapped around her arm and hauling her back up to her feet. From the corner of her eyes she watched flesh show and then go bright red against his side at the opening in his defenses her fall had caused. Desperate, she struggled to her feet – and then almost went down again as the ground lurched hard under the soles of her boots. She had time to make a distracted, surprised sound and then the tunnel itself seemed to jar violently to the side. Cloud's arm was hard around her waist and he hauled her backward, putting his own back to the wall and tucking her into him. She caught a glimpse of Red near his legs. Somewhere further down the tunnel a painful noise was building, made of shrieks and screams, wails and grinding, breaking rock. More fine silt filtered down and gravel rained down from the ceiling. Cloud covered the back of her head with his hand and tucked her face down into his chest under the shelter of his own head. Something sharp caught at her leg – and then was wrenched violently away.

The world seemed to be tearing itself apart and Tifa had to wonder if the computer virus had gotten tired of waiting for them to die – or had malfunctioned and was in the process of destroying everything anyway.

Wrapped up tight and tucked into the safety of Cloud's arms – she shut her eyes and, since it wouldn't matter, let herself realize – it felt nice… being in his arms this way, snuggled so close. Surprisingly safe and comfortable considering the way sparks could fly sometimes. She didn't – she didn't feel as if she were all alone. Because it wouldn't matter soon, she shifted her arms from where they were curled against his chest and wrapped them hesitantly around his waist instead.

It might not matter soon… but in another way, she thought it might be the only thing left that mattered.

The tunnel took a stomach clenching lurch that made her wonder how they weren't all on the ground afterward and a roar that hurt her ears and made her head ring. There was a sudden wash of painful white light.

Was that… game over?

Except – she could still feel Cloud's arms around her.

"Tifa!"

It was a low voice and one she didn't recognize. She lifted her head and turned it but her gripe on Cloud didn't relax. Blinking against the light, she realized it was daylight, weak and watery as it made its way down to them through silt clogged air. A form was silhouetted against the light and as she watched it shrank and became a man resting on the lip of the sudden crater in the ceiling, holding out a hand.

There was something very familiar about that gesture somehow.

"It's time to go, Tifa."

The phrase caught her and suddenly – she knew who it was. It made her lips part slightly in surprise – and entirely renewed the battle with her conscience she was having. Because here she was, in another man's arms when –

"Rude!"

It wasn't the name she really said – but it was what the computer program translated to come out of her mouth. Either way, it was her sleeping body back in the tubes that wore his ring.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Cloud stood to the side, arms across his chest, back against one of the many huge boulders in the area and watched a distantly seated Tifa talking to her fiancée.

The man had lousy timing as far as he was concerned.

Nearby the chocobos they'd coaxed into climbing out of the hole in the side of the mountain their gamers had created were nervous and preening their feathers. Jessie moved among them, combing her fingers through their feathers and talking to them calmly while Red lay nearby, his predatory presence apparently not programmed in to be seen as threatening to the giant birds. The two of them were carrying on some kind of conversation in low tones and Cloud could see the way it was actually physically relaxing Jessie. Hey You was peering into the buggy that had been dropped into the area at the same time as the avatars the gamers were using to communicate with them. Just past the buggy was a giant Zolom impaled on a huge spike of wood. Apparently it had been waiting for them at the tunnel's exit but, he'd been informed, White had taken care of it. From just the corner of his eye, Cloud watched the avatar that looked like Tseng break off his conversation with Aerith and start over toward him. Not bothering lift his chin, Cloud simply slanted his eyes toward the other man and grunted.

Much more comfortable pretending he was relaxed and careless of what was going on than trying to straighten and giving away the fact that he wasn't sure his knees were working right anymore.

If he could he was going to crawl into the back of that buggy while someone else drove and test just how hard it was for an avatar to actually fall asleep.

Tseng folded his arms stiffly in front of his own chest, an almost formal seeming gesture.

"White has instructed me to tell you to head for Fort Condor. There seems to be a great deal of activity occurring in Junon in the computer system and he believes that it will allow him to concentrate his skills elsewhere."

"What's the situation outside?" Cloud asked low and Tseng's stiff face managed a frown.

"It appears as if forces have either invaded the building to combat the terrorists or the terrorists themselves have withdrawn to a few floors. Unfortunately the floor that holds the labs is one of the floors they are holding for the moment. Black has been in contact with some form of government response to the situation but does not seem impressed. He is however, enthusiastic. About everything."

It coughed a sound out of Cloud and the edges of his lips twitched upward. His eyes however snuck back to Tifa and the other avatar before focusing ahead of himself.

Tseng nodded.

"As you can see avatar Lockheart's actor's fiancée has been recovered safely. He has proven most useful in his skills with security systems. He insisted on being plugged in to one of the head-sets so that he could accompany me to this check point. He is quite impressive with the mathematics of explosive radius."

"Helped you blow a hole in the side of the mountain for us?"

"Indeed."

"Then thank him for me," Cloud didn't hate the man and even if he had, manners were manners. Didn't mean he actually wanted to talk to the guy. Tseng simply nodded again.

"The buggy is a decoy."

That made Cloud's head come up and he shot Tseng a flat look.

"It will head for Junon and is programmed to broadcast enough to cover the entirety of your group. But you will have to reach Condor quickly. The closer the buggy gets to the centralized activity the harder it will be to keep it from being corrupted by the viruses that are rampant in that area. Once it is discovered to be a decoy I imagine that the consequences will be – dramatic. The terrorists are very interested in the lot of you, Captain Strife."

Cloud's blue eyes, sharp and hard, rose to meet Tseng's.

"Black likes to tell stories, doesn't he?"

The very edge of Tseng's mouth shifted upward.

"Indeed. You have quite a colorful background. I'm sure the executives in charge of selling the game were thrilled to accept your application to play in it."

One of Cloud's shoulders shrugged mildly and he looked back at Tifa.

"It's come in handy." He turned his attention back on Tseng. "So – we make for Fort Condor. Keep it quiet. And hope there's something worth while waiting when we arrive?"

"I believe that _is_ what White suggested."

Cloud nodded.

"Any supplies or support?"

"Weapon upgrades and 'medication' were dropped with the buggy. I believe your large friend has already found them. And with that our time is almost gone. I wish you luck. Excuse me while I go pay my regards to Ms. Aerith."

"You're very fond of her," Cloud remarked flatly. Tseng gave him a brief smile.

"I'm her gamer. Lily."

Cloud was polite enough to wait until he was walking away to smirk. Then he turned his attention on Tifa and her boyfriend again. He was tempted to call her, tell her it was time to go –

Except she was hugging Rude tightly, face pressed hard into his shoulder and Cloud knew it would be a real asshole move to make. He didn't mind pretending to be an ass – but actually being one because he was jealous…

Instead he pushed himself to his feet and waited for the world to stop swaying. Slowly picking his way down to the buggy over the bits of mountain innards that were now scattering the side of it, he hoped his slow pace just looked casual.

And he hoped like hell that some of that 'medication' was stimulants.

Hey looked up with a wide, white grin as Cloud approached and he twirled the barrels of the new gun he had in place of his arm. It made the edge of Cloud's mouth shift upward and then Hey was moving forward toward him.

"Hey, you'd better sit down," the larger man told him and Cloud gave him a sideways look that didn't indicate appreciation. He still sat down on the side of the buggy though. Hey went around to the back of it and came back with what looked like a water bottle full of lime Kool-Aid. Cloud took it dubiously.

"Drink up," Hey instructed – and then crossed his massive arms over his chest to stare at Cloud until the blond finally did crack the bottle open and take a few long swallows. Whatever was in the liquid, Cloud could feel it the second it hit his system and he pulled in a deep breath before chugging the rest of it down. Hey nodded approvingly.

"Ain't many of them," he waited until Cloud was resting the empty bottle on his thigh before sharing that information. "But I figured enough for you three front liners and then we give the rest to the birds. Soup 'em up and get us wherever the hell we're goin' that much faster."

Cloud's brows twitched but he nodded. He wouldn't have thought of it himself but it made a lot of sense.

"We're headed for Fort Condor. Guess you already figured out the buggy isn't going with us."

Hey shrugged and waved his good hand.

"It ain't got no seats in it. Or steering wheels or stuff. I figured somethin' like that."

It made Cloud smile and he relaxed a little against the metal of the vehicle.

"I don't know where they found you," he admitted. "But damned if I'm not glad they did."

Hey grinned.

"Knew all those years of online video games and MMORPGs would come in handy sometime."

Cloud shook his head but he was smiling.

"Remind me to invest in that company you're putting together."

Hey made a noise and his huge shoulders shrugged.

"I think that prize money is a thing of the past at this point."

Cloud calmly met his eyes.

"It might be – but you're going to start that company at some point with or without the prize money. Just letting you know I want in when you do."

For a minute Hey just blinked at him – and then he started to grin. It made him look – young.

"All right! Yeah! I'll make sure you get in on the ground floor."

Cloud couldn't stop the chuckle and something in his chest eased up a bit.

"I'll hold you to that. Now go bring some of those drinks to Red and Tifa and round everyone and their chocobos up. Leave Tifa until last though. Let her have her time with her fiancée."

Hey scowled – but he nodded and scooped up more of the strange drinks before heading off. Cloud gave himself just a moment more to rest exactly as he was, to enjoy the knowledge that, somehow, everyone in his care was still alive – and then he pushed himself to his feet and walked around behind the buggy to examine the weapons they'd been left.

Somehow he almost expected it when Aerith showed up.

For a long time, she simply stood there, watching him sort through their gear. Finally she dropped to her heels next to him, almost thigh to thigh. He let her and handed her the staff that was obviously intended for her. It already had materia inset in it.

"It makes it easier for you, doesn't it?"

He turned his head to fix her with intentionally bland eyes when she finally spoke.

"What?" he asked.

She shrugged and brushed at her bangs with her fingers.

"That she's already taken."

For a very long moment, he watched her – but she didn't offer anything else or do anything beyond inspect her staff. Finally, he gave in first and rested his hands over his thighs.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you like her – but things are going to be different once the real world means something again. If she's already taken than you don't have to pretend there's anything beyond the game for the two of you and you can just enjoy now without worry about consequences later."

Settling a bit more comfortably onto his heels, Cloud gave it a moment before he calmly asked:

"And what if I want there to be consequences, Aerith? What if I'm the type of guy that wants more than just a pretty avatar?"

"Then I'd say you're lying," she answered it simply and stood up. Cloud caught her wrist with his hand. She looked down at him and her face was perfectly flawless… except for the hurt around her green eyes.

"Aerith," he voice was soft and then he had to stop, unsure of what to say. She waited and it was obvious she didn't expect him to offer anything of worth even though she was polite about it. He exhaled. Shook his head.

"Things aren't always as simple as they seem. Sometimes… things get complicated. Fast."

It was obvious he wasn't telling her anything that didn't sound like an excuse and he supposed they were. Finally, he let her go.

"Maybe sometimes you make a mistake so big you feel like there's nothing you can do to make it right. And the longer you wait to try – the more impossible it seems to ever fix. And you hurt the people you love the most – and convince yourself it's for the best." He looked up at her.

"I'm not saying it's right. Just that sometimes people get too wrapped up in a mistake to find their way out of it alone. That's all."

"And you don't?"

He gave her a wry smile and went back to weapon sorting.

"I did. And it's taken me almost ten years to get smacked over the head hard enough with how stupid I was to make me decide to do something about it."

He felt the soft thud of the approaching steps of the chocobos and straightened to his feet, slapping the newly upgraded Buster across his back again. Jessie gave Aerith a suspicious look as she led the chocobos in and Cloud just gave the other woman a smile as he took the reins she offered him. Without a word, he swung up into the saddle, settling in a lot more comfortably than he had at the start of all of this. Watching he waited while the others sorted and packed their new gear. Tifa came far behind everyone else but it was all right – he'd already packed her things and added them to his. Her head was down and when he moved the chocobo to block her path, her face looked tired as she lifted it to him. He didn't think it was anything physical.

His heart broke just a little bit more in its continuous crumble. He'd meant what he said to Aerith. But… sometimes… the damage was already too vast to fix.

He was going to try his damnest though.

Holding down his hand for hers, he waited until she had caught it and had her foot on his for balance. Then he pulled her up in front of him. Her body stiffened in surprise as he pulled her in sideways to rest in front of him but he slid his arms around her and settled the upgrade to her glove in her hands. Light, he rested his chin on top of her head and heard the soft sound of broken amusement she made at the childish gesture. It was enough. For now. Pulling her close, she finally gave in to him and snuggled in. It made him smile, just a little and he cradled her against him while everyone else mounted up the way they had the last time. Everyone but Aerith looked to him once they were settled.

"All right," his voice was calm. "Let's mosey."


	15. Chapter 15

_**warning: ** I haven't written chapter 16 yet! Are you suuuuure you want to read this one?_

_and hey ;) happy thanksgiving!_

Chapter 15:

There was – a lot of guilt. She hadn't expected to see her fiancée before she got out of the game – though maybe she should have known he'd come in if he could – but when she'd seen him, she'd known that she had to apologize. Then, right then, and not put it off and be a coward and wait until the situation was 'right'.

She'd owned him a lot of apologies.

For so much more than just the things she'd done with her avatar.

He'd been – he'd been himself. Sweet and concerned, calm and kind. Worried more about her than himself and patient with her as she'd stumbled through everything she'd known she had to say. Of course he had been. She wouldn't have gotten engaged to someone that would be uncomfortable to live with later on.

So he'd been calm and kind and promised that, when she was out of this, they'd talk seriously about things. She knew he thought that she might have gotten too caught up in the game but he'd never dismiss her concerns.

The guilt was a dull gnawing ache in her stomach still. Strangely though, the relief was lighter in her chest. She hadn't expected the chance to talk to her fiancée so soon – but she was so very grateful that she'd gotten the chance. It had let her say everything she'd wanted to say.

To her fiancée. Her eyes trailed upward and focused on Cloud's face.

She was really only halfway done with the things she needed to say. Her eyes shifted back to the passing scenery and she frowned to herself. What she had to say to Cloud was somehow more difficult than what she'd had to say to her fiancée. She still wasn't sure how she was going to say it right.

"Don't."

His voice was soft and she tipped her face to look back up at him. Somehow, not all that surprised he seemed to be reading her mind again. His arm was around her to support her and his glove on her arm rubbed lightly. He didn't look down at her though.

"You're thinking too hard. Don't. There'll be plenty of time for that once this is over. Do what you have to do now and deal with the emotions when you're safe and sound back in the real world."

There was something in the way he said it that sounded as if it was advice he'd given before. There was something in the way he said it that sounded like -

"You say that like you know it from experience."

His eyes blinked and for a minute, just a minute, she wondered what had been in that blue before he'd sealed it away with the flicker of lashes and thin skin. Voice low, he simply answered:

"Yes."

Silent, she promised herself that, when they did make it out of this, she was going to pin him down and ask all the questions she knew it wasn't safe to bring up now. Under them, the chocobo ran on tirelessly. She looked down – and then back up at him.

"I'm not sorry." She said it before she lost her nerve, blurting it but determined. Cloud made a listening noise and tipped his face just enough to slant a glance down at her. She shook her head, wishing they were facing each other so that she could really see his eyes and watch his face. She felt as if she were missing half a conversation this way.

"I'm not sorry," she repeated. "Not for my part in this game. I'm glad I've been a part of it. I'm glad it's challenged me to think. And - " she lifted her eyes to his as he watched her. "I'm glad I met you."

"Tifa..."

It was a soft warning and she saw it in his eyes, saw both the longing and the way the barriers went up. And she realized she'd seen that combination before from him – and that it felt as if she'd known that combination for a long, long time. She knew she was doing this all wrong but she needed to say it. Stubborn, she plowed on.

"It's true. I'm glad I met you. You've challenged me and - I'm glad. I hadn't realized how long I'd been drifting and letting decisions make themselves for me. How much I was letting the world happen around me and not doing anything about it. So - thank you. For waking me up."

"Tifa," his voice was a little bit firmer this time and blue eyes slanted down at her from where she peeked up at him. Around her, his arm tightened. "Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You can tell me all of this when we wake up out of the tubes back in the real world. Don't – don't do this now. Okay? We'll have time later. I promise."

She frowned up at him, not sure why he wouldn't let her finish. Because she wasn't done. She couldn't – she couldn't push though. Not when he asked her not to that way. Instead she sighed and intentionally slumped a little. So he'd know she was giving in but wasn't happy about it. It felt – strange – and… nice to be able to do that, and know that he would understand – and know that he would know she was doing it on purpose. His chin came down to tuck against the top of her head briefly and he hugged her a little tighter to him.

"Don't do that to me, Tifa. You know I don't like disappointing you."

Tucked into him the way she was, she couldn't lift her face to look at him. Because – he was right. She did know that. She just wasn't sure she was supposed to.

"Cloud?" she asked it softly and heard him grunt above her to show he was listening. "Can we talk? I mean – after this? When we wake up, things are going to be crazy for a while, aren't they? Even after we get out and we're safe and the terrorists aren't a problem anymore, the company is going to want to keep up busy and the news is going to want to talk to us and our families and – " she paused when he didn't insert or disagree with her. Hunching a little more into him, voice small, she asked:

"Will you make time to talk to me?"

It was silent for what felt like a very long held breath and then he exhaled. And she noticed it shook. His arm shifted to wrap around her more completely, pulling her closer into the curve of his body. And it was a long time before he finally mumbled:

"Sure."

She ducked her chin.

"You mean it?"

"If you still want to talk to me when this is all over – I mean it."

"Cloud…" she had to pause and wet her lips. "Is there a reason I wouldn't want to?"

Lifting his head to stare straight ahead again, everything about him said the conversation was done. His arm tightened around her a little bit more though and, to her, it felt as if he was afraid. He still answered her though, even if it was only:

"Yes."

Dealing with children – and their parents – Tifa had learned when pushing would only make someone shut down and clam up and when not pushing gave them room to come back to answering – so she didn't push now. Even if the way his voice had sounded on that 'yes'… she wondered what he'd done that was so terrible in his life that he thought she was going to run screaming from him when she found out who he was…

She wondered if she'd want to run screaming – and wasn't sure what she would do if she did.

Instead, hesitant but sure, she shifted against him until he'd loosened his grip enough and then she freed her arm to slip it around him, tucking back in close. Because – he felt so alone – and she didn't want him to feel that way.

She didn't want him to be that way.

The glow came into view before Fort Condor actually did and when they got close to the mountain, they could see why. There was a giant bird on top of the mountain and it was as bright as a small, gold moon. It washed the landscape as they got closer, tinting everything so that the greens were greener and the reds were muted. The air itself looked hazy gold. Sitting in front of Cloud, Tifa couldn't help but sit up a little straighter and she could feel the way even the chocobos moved a little faster and lighter. Nearby, hanging onto Aerith tightly, Barret whistled.

"We shoulda come here first all along."

Cloud's gloved hands shifted on the reins, holding them tighter.

"Keep your eyes open. Just because we're not supposed to be here doesn't mean that the computer didn't leave a few random surprises just in case."

It tensed up the entire group and stole some of the lazy warmth out of the day – but it was true and Tifa turned her head to watch to the side and slightly behind them, knowing Cloud would have to keep most of his attention toward the front if he were guiding the chocobo.

The air still felt warm and slightly syrupy in her lungs as she breathed it.

They reached the cave entrance without incident however and somehow that just made them more nervous instead of less. So when Cloud pulled his chocobo to a stop and hopped off after handing Tifa the reins, Barret was already scrambling down to join him without being asked. Red all but fell off of his chocobo but both he and the bird looked relieved. Cloud shot both of them an arch look, eyebrow raised but he nodded. With a gesture toward the remaining team, he started silently forward and the other two fell in behind him. The darkness of the cave swallowed them soon after.

Tifa realized how much she hated being left behind.

"Teef?" Jessie's voice was low even though there didn't seem to be anyone within hearing range and Tifa realized that both her and Aerith were watching her. Waiting for instructions. She'd forgotten she was the default leader when Cloud wasn't there. Some of her tension must have fed down into the bird under her because it shifted restlessly on the gravel path, long claws raking trails as it scratched. Tifa reached out to scratch under the feathers behind its cheek and kept her voice calm and quiet.

"We stay on the birds. Keep them ready just in case we have to leave in a hurry." She offered a tight smile, hoping it was reassuring. "It'll be fine."

Aerith was also stroking her bird's neck and watching the cave with a tight face but Jessie was looking at the surrounding area.

"I can't believe it's almost over," she murmured and then looked at Tifa and offered a weak smile. "I mean, it feels like we – belong here, you know? It's going to be weird to go back to the real me and _not_ be carrying a gun across my back." Reaching up absently, she touched her bandana. "I'm going to miss my hair. I like this hair better than my own."

"I'll fix your hair," Aerith startled them both by speaking up and when they looked at her, she looked embarrassed and away at the cave entrance again. Her shoulder shrugged. "It's not that hard. A little bit to strip it, a little bit of dye and some hot oil to make it soft. We can even put some curl in it."

"Really?" Jessie sounded pleased and Tifa knew it was as much from the fact that Aerith was offering as what Aerith was offering. Still looking a little awkward, Aerith looked at the other girl and offered a shy smile.

"Sure."

Red padded out of the cave at that moment and sat down.

"Cloud says I am to tell you 'clear'. And that your 'spiky headed, annoying' friend is there as well, Tifa. He says to leave the 'giant chickens' and come."

It made Tifa smile and she slipped off of the chocobo without hesitation. Cloud was using phrases that sounded like himself so they'd know Red wasn't being tricked or forced. Even though it was only a computer generation, Tifa gave her bird one last stroke and dropped the reins so it would stay put. Jessie and Aerith joined her and together they followed Red as he padded back into the cave.

It grew dark and finally Red paused just before it grew too dark to continue. Again, he sat down and Tifa finally realized that that was his way of showing that he was relaxed and that everything was okay. Jessie, she noticed, still rested her hand on his head and he didn't seem to mind.

"Wait. It will go dark and then light again," Red instructed. "It is the game moving to the next scene."

True to his word, that was what happened next and it was disorientating. A bit like the save point she'd used back when this really had been just a game. Hesitant, not sure her voice would carry, Tifa said:

"This is the way it was supposed to be for new areas, wasn't it? This is still part of the original game."

"Yes," Red's voice answered in the black. "This part is still uncorrupted. It is – a bit of a shock."

There was a flicker of color in front of her and then the light came back, revealing the end of the cave and a homey looking common room beyond, lit with firelight and candles. The floor was hard packed earth and most of the furniture looked crude. She saw several new figures moving around inside it and as she followed Red through the entrance she realized that they were mannequins. The computer generated fill-ins for real avatars that she hadn't seen since – Midgar. Even the family on the farm had been too detailed. These were obviously just secondary characters mass created by a computer, with the dull eyes, same body build and voice tone and limited cycle of movement, following preprogrammed loops.

It was – jarring. And it made her wonder how she could have found the computer's environment so realistic before. Even the earth floor under her looked too… uniform. Looking up she caught Cloud watching her from where he was standing next to an old man and the smile he gave her was quiet and a little wry. It made her feel better and she inhaled and nodded. The old man turned from Cloud and looked at the women with glass eyes. And cracked:

"Took ya long enough, babe. Mace was about to send outta search party for ya'."

"Swift!" it was ridiculous how happy she was to hear his voice again and she ran over to throw her arms around him in a hug.

"Hey, hey, babe, watch the PDA. This old man's made of match sticks." It was a protest – but she felt the way he hugged her back and she knew he was possibly even more relieved to see her than she was to see him. She exhaled contentment and then let go of him. Cloud was there for her to thump unexpectedly back into. She was learning enough about him to know it wasn't accidental as his hand found her hip and curved there.

"So now that we're all here, it's just step into the save point and go?"

Cloud's question sounded suspicious and Tifa knew the feeling. After everything else that had gone on, and how hard they'd had to fight – they were really going to just waltz calmly out of the game like that? The old man's bony shoulders shrugged.

"Well, we can totally play a vicious game of tiddlywinks to the death if you want before that," Swift straight-faced. "But White says that he's locked it down to the Condor save point and he's yankin' from there." The old man's face somehow managed to sober. "Hey, we're not sayin' it's all cake-walk." His eyes found Tifa's. "We're jury-riggin' this. It's not the safe expulsion. Computer's corrupted and we ain't got no docs or medics or nothin' on standby. White says it's the best he can pull and I believe him. But there's still a risk somethin' could go wrong and brain fry you. You wanna wait here, White's got the area reinforced so it should be safe for a little while after they realize you're not in Junon. Maybe the cops'll have the jerks running this program by then and we can pull you all out safer." His eyes shifted to take in the rest of the group. "This is the emergency exit on the plane, gang. When it's still in the air. We'll do our best no matter what you guys decide."

Cloud's arm tightened around Tifa a little more but he didn't volunteer anything. She thought she knew what that meant. He'd already made up his mind and he wasn't going to influence anyone else. But she wondered what he'd decided.

"I will go," Red took a step forward. "If I make it safely to the other side, you may tell the others here so and they may come after me."

Swift was already shaking his head though.

"We're gonna rip a hole in the world when we send you. Everyone in the system is going to know – and that virus is going to come down like a hammer. White says it's a one-time shot. Everyone who goes goes together and then we evac the rest of you because all hell's gonna come down on this place once we crack it."

"Figures," Barret muttered under his breath and then he straightened his shoulders and pulled in a deep breath. "Okay, count me in on the away team. Those losers in charge of the virus can't use us as threats or bargaining chips if we ain't here anymore. I'll take my chances with this White guy instead."

Cloud made an almost silently amused sound behind Tifa but didn't offer anything else. Aerith dusted off the sides of her dress.

"Well, it's not as if there's anything left to win. Let's go home."

And then, expectant, she looked at Cloud. He turned his head to look at Jessie. Who gave him a weak smile and shrugged.

"I was supposed to die anyway back at the beginning. I'll go with Red."

Tifa felt the focus on her. Another decision to be made, another fork in the road of her life she needed to pick. She was done letting expectations determine what she did. She lifted her face to look at Cloud.

"And I'll go where you do."

"Tifa – " it was an exhale and sounded torn. She shook her head at him and linked her fingers through his.

"I'm not letting you decide what happens to me. I'm deciding to back you up if you decide to stay. If you want to fight, we'll fight it together. We can help each other."

Somehow she was already expecting, almost hoping for it, when his arms suddenly closed around her and he pulled her back into the curve of his body, shifting forward to press his face into her hair. And she smiled, turning her head to press her face into his hair. Sure of her decision the way she hadn't been sure of anything for a long time.

Cloud lifted his head but his embrace didn't relax.

"We all go," he told Swift and the old man nodded. Then he held up a hand and cocked his head for a long moment, listening. Another nod and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Save point's in that room. Everyone hang on to each other and hop in at the same time. White says it's cranked and now's the now."

Cloud nodded and let go, face tight and controlled. His voice was calm and just as controlled.

"All right. You heard the man. Let's do this."

No one needed to be told twice and Tifa paused just long enough to give Swift another hug.

"It'll be okay," she told him in a whisper against his ear. "You'll see. Whatever happens, it'll be okay."

"Babe, it better be okay or I'm gutting that White guy myself," he growled back and gave her one last squeeze before letting her go so she could catch up with the others. Cloud was waiting by the open door for her and he caught her arm as she started to duck past.

"You can forgive me later," his voice was a gravel rumble and then he brought his lips down over hers like fire.

The squeaking noise slipped out and her eyes went huge in her face. It wasn't just a quick peck though, Cloud was intent on being thorough.

It wasn't a tease to distract her. It wasn't a move to show the other men in the room who was claiming first interest in her. It wasn't even a goodbye or 'for luck'. Instead it was – Tifa tasted desperation. And longing and tightly chained need. And despair. And all of them tore through her heart – and maybe she should have stopped him - but it was the last one that had her winding her arms around his wide shoulders and relaxing into him, mouth softening for his. Later forgiveness must have earned him a great deal because Cloud took advantage of her response, arms wrapping her closer and shifting to cradle her as he tipped her the little bit under him. The kiss went hot liquid oil and he wasn't interested in being polite or respecting her personal space. His tongue traced her bottom lip, swamping her with heat and the sensation and she knew better – and parted her lips for him anyway.

It was a great deal like drowning… and realizing that you could breath underwater and why hadn't you started doing that years ago. When their lips finally parted for that precious air, she was gasping and flushed and felt shivery and warm at the same confusing time. While she was still trying to reorient, Cloud took her hand and pulled her into the room – and she felt a vague resentment that he seemed to be able to do that without having his knees give out the way she felt like hers were about to.

The others were waiting around the save point and Tifa kept her eyes down to avoid the looks she knew were on their faces. Jessie caught her other hand though and she snuck a glance at the other woman to find her grinning like a fool. Ridiculously - it made Tifa want to grin that way as well.

So, so much she needed to set right once she was back in her own body…

Cloud's voice counted it down.

"Three, two, one – "

At the last, Tifa took the step forward, felt the tug from both Jessie and Cloud's hands as they did as well. The save point expanded into gold light and she felt the familiar tingle run over and through her that she'd felt when she'd used the save point in Midgar. Vaguely, she could see the forms of the others and she had time to count them and make sure they were all there just before the world seemed to very literally tear open. The light ripped down its seams, being striped away as impossible, bottomless darkness poured in. Tifa had to time realize that she was gasping in air as if she were about to fall into water and then the ice cold feeling hit her hard. Everything seemed to freeze and she realized in horror that she couldn't inhale. Or exhale. She couldn't breathe and the panic set in fast. Except she couldn't even lift her hands. She was frozen, solid and unmoving.

She couldn't scream even if she'd wanted to.

And then light spiraled down through the darkness and it was white and yet every color she could imagine. It filled her eyes – and then filled the rest of her. Air poured back into her lungs and she pulled it in with gasping, greedy sounds. The color faded away but the white light above her remained and she was slowly aware of the fact that she was lying on her back. And that her body ached. And felt heavy.

Her mouth tasted stale.

Nearby she heard Mace's voice, felt a touch on skin that felt far to sensitive and it made her smile weakly, face feeling tight and leathery.

And then, off to the side and a little ahead of her, she heard a high pitched, continuous alarm start. There was the sound of sudden furniture crashing and someone was suddenly shouting. It was a voice she didn't recognize… but she understood what the words meant.

"Shit - shit, **NO**! Shit – White – ! He's flat lining! Do something - !"


	16. Chapter 16

_and here we are again, oh best beloveds and gentle readers. I have been remiss on answering the lovely reviews left for me, I'm sorry. But I did manage to get this out in time for a Christmas gift and I hope that makes up for it at least a little. So - Merry, merry Christmas all and I hope you enjoy the gift ;)_

Chapter 16:

The air felt harsh, as if it were too dry and it hurt on the way down as she gasped. Something moved in her chest and she realized it was her lungs and they ached. Somewhere off to the side and behind her that thin noise was still shrilling and she struggled to sit up. Mace's hands were against her shoulders and it was pathetic how easily the woman kept her down.

"Not yet, not yet. Hang on. Black's got this. Let me help you."

Tifa tried to say something but it came out silent. She cleared her throat and then made a muffled noise at how much that hurt. She felt something tug at her nose and Mace was talking again. There was a horrible slid of… something and it seemed to go up her throat and out her nose and she made a gagging noise in response – but all she could concentrate on the whole time was that monotone sound from the other tube so close and yet a world away from her. The slick sliding sensation stopped with a light tug and Tifa found herself coughing and then sneezing and she was still fighting to keep from gagging but it was too hard to breathe. Arms, warm and strong and oh so comforting went under her shoulders and she was sitting up.

The world lurched hard and her stomach finally gave in. Scrambling to lean over the side, Tifa heaved. It hurt all the way up into her lungs but nothing came out. Those warm arms stayed around her, rubbing her back, keeping her hair out of her face as the motions shook her hard. She felt as if she were made of paper and thin pieces of twig, all tissue and pointy bits. Her nose ran as she heaved and so did her eyes and she was angry at her body for doing this now when she had something – someone – so much more important to be concentrating on. She finally got the gagging under control but it had left her ribs and stomach hurting and her throat felt raw and torn to shreds. A warm, damp cloth wiped at her face and it felt so good for a moment she forgot to concentrate on anything else.

"Mace – " she managed to croak it this time and it hurt like salt on open wounds but at least it was something. And then she realized – all she heard was silence.

There was no monotone beep. There was no beep at all.

Giving up on talking, she curled her fingers around the edge of the plastic tube she was in and tried to lever herself out but, again, her friend stopped her. And, again, it was pathetically easy. Shaking with the effort she'd already put out, she raised her face to her friend.

"Oh, Ayumi," Mace's voice was soft and she stroked Tifa's hair back. It felt good and yet made her realize how greasy it felt against her scalp. She made a noise and shook her head against her friend, twisting in her arms to look at the place the shrill sound had been coming from. There was a dark haired man standing over the tube looking down into it at someone Tifa couldn't see and nearby there was a man in a wheelchair at a computer console. Swift was hunched over the keyboard with him and she could hear the sound of frantic key tapping and the low, tight murmur of their voices. In other tubes around the large metal hub set in the middle of the room there were various sounds of stirring and physical reactions to it. Tifa managed to pull her knees up close to her body.

"Drink this," it was a low, familiar voice at her side and she turned her head to see her fiancée. He looked as calm and steady as ever and she gave him a weak smile, taking the cup with its straw from him before her eyes went desperately back to the silent tube. The dark haired man was leaning low over it and she couldn't hear what his quiet voice was saying but it sounded continuous and insistent. Mace nudged the cup and automatically Tifa sipped at it. A thick, sticky sludge ran down her throat and she made a face and tried not to gag – but it helped her raw throat and settled her empty stomach a little. It was enough to let her make a soft noise in her throat that held all the worry and fear and straining longing she felt.

The dark haired man looked up at the noise and his eyes focused on her. He did something with his mouth that she thought must be meant to be a smile but it didn't work right at all for him. And then he straightened up and walked over to where she was.

"You're Tifa?"

The way he asked it didn't sound as if he didn't already know but she nodded mutely at him anyway. He nodded back in response, brows down over his eyes and then, entirely ignoring the other two people near her, he leaned in and scooped her up. She didn't even have to ask and she certainly didn't protest even as Mace made a sound that was the start of it. The man holding her though ignored it and instead carried her over to the tube he'd been standing in front of originally. She wound weak fingers in his shirt and strained forward a little.

The man in the tube looked as if he was sleeping. There were IVs hooked up to his arms and a thin plastic tube down his nose while various wires she guessed must be for monitoring were stuck to his bare chest and temples. It occurred to her, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Mace must have taken most of those off of her before she even came entirely around. The man she knew as Cloud had pale skin and, lax in the tube, it was easy to see the random freckles that scattered almost invisibly across his shoulders, his forearms, and small and in whispers across his face. For some reason those freckles stood out to her, setting off bells inside her mind. The man's hair was blond and did look shaggy and slightly spiky though not as gravity defying as she was used to and at the moment it looked limp and lifeless. He was just in a pair of loose pants and a pair of dog tags. She could see scars in little fits and starts across his bare chest with one ugly, indented one just below his heart. And then her own heart gave a little fit inside her chest and with a soft sound, she was letting go of the man holding her to reach down. A little panicked, not sure if she wanted to believe or not, she laid the flat of her hand over his cold chest. After a moment, she swore she felt the minuscule rise of it and, shortly afterward, the way it sank again in an exhale. The man holding her hummed.

"Yeah. He's still breathing, though the fucker scared the shit out of me earlier when he stopped."

He was using English when he spoke and Tifa, not taking her hands off of Cloud's chest, looked up sideways at him. His eyes were a dark blue but he definitely had Japanese features. Someone that was half and half then and it reminded her of someone else she'd once known that was –

Oh.

Oh no…

Her eyes went back to the blond man sleeping in the tube and – freckles. She remembered freckles. And blond fly a way hair forever in need of a comb.

And vulnerable, guarded, longing blue eyes and the promise of a friendship that would last forever and hadn't. Long walks home and secret Japanese lessons so he could speak it better and better and his mother's cookies and kites flown on windy days in parks far from their neighborhood and secret jokes and secret looks and bullies and cruel words and slurs against her and fists and blood and black eyes and school suspensions for him that were just as hard on her and –

And getting hurt and his abandonment…

Oh….

…oh no…

Careful, her hands shifted and she touched the lean angles of the sleeping face. It had been rounder – when he'd been a child. The chin had been more pointed. Light, she touched his dry lips and she didn't have to look at the name on his tags to know his name. Still holding her, the other man said:

"Yeah. He's been crushing pretty hard on you since he found out you were going to be in the game too. Always got the impression he felt guilty over something. He wouldn't go near you, wouldn't even leave a room until he was sure you wouldn't show up in the hallway outside it. I told him to man up and introduce himself but…" his eyes strayed away and over to another tube. "But I'm not really the guy to be pushing that kind of thing."

"Oh, quite pining, Black." A refined, vaguely bored voice sounded nearby and Tifa looked down to see the tall lean man in the wheel chair had rolled silently over to where they were. "You two act like school boys with your first crushes." Pale green eyes shifted to Tifa's face and she felt a strange shudder at how impersonal they looked. He offered his hand.

"White. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ito. I apologize for your arrival here. It was not my best work."

Still holding her, Black asked what was really on both of their minds.

"How's Cloud?"

White's pale brows furrowed and he glanced at the man in the tube. His hair really was pale enough to be white, Tifa realized even though she wouldn't guess that he was much older than any of the rest of them. She thought, or maybe she just imagined it, that White's face went a little worried and more human when he looked at Cloud.

"I had to send him back in. Apparently the virus is attached to his avatar though I'm not sure how it happened. It must have started before we realized they were being upgraded. When I tried to bring him out the virus activated and tried to crash his interface. I managed to keep it from happening but had to stop the extract process. He's still hooked up to the game."

Black made a noise that might have been close to a growl.

"So he's still in hostile territory. How do we extract him?"

White shook his head.

"Swift is looking for him as we speak. Our previous extract crashed the Fort Condor point and it's currently too hot to go in. The good news is that apparently our opponents can't find him either. The bad news is that that is most likely because his consciousness is not currently inhabiting his avatar."

"The fuck?" It was a new voice and they all turned to see a scrawny teen, propped up between two other equally scrawny teens. The one in the middle adjusted his glasses and demanded:

"So what's up with Spiky and how do we help you get him back?"

Speech patterns apparently outlasted physical changes. Tifa blinked in shock at the nerdy looking boy wearing the 'Neville would have done it in four books' t-shirt over his Transformers print pajama bottoms.

"Ah," White turned his attention on the three. "The game designers. Your friends have been most helpful with some of the more intricate sub-routines in the program but both of them insist you are the true…'geek master'? I have some programs I would appreciate your insight into."

"You got it," the kid that had once been Barret and Hey You nodded, brows down in determination behind his glasses. "It's time to kick some noob ass."

White nodded.

"Indeed. And Black – you can put Ms. Ito down any time you chose. I'm sure her friends would like her back at some point."

"Get her a chair," another voice, female this time, spoke from a nearby tube. "She'll want to sit next to him."

Tifa felt the way the man holding her jerked and she looked up at his frozen face and then over to see Aerith sitting up primly in her tube, hands folded in her lap, a scarf artfully wrapped around her head to hide how her hair must have been just as messed up as the rest of them and a flower embroidered sweater on. Her face looked perfectly calm but there was fire in her eyes as she inclined her head just a little to add:

"Zack."

"Shit," Black muttered it under his breath – and then he took a huge lungful of air in and looked down at her. "It's my turn to do the apology, beg, grovel, plead thing. You mind sitting here?"

Mute as much in surprise as anything else, Tifa shook her head – and Zack proceeded to set her down right in the tube. Tifa managed to tuck her legs up and shift so she wasn't on top of Cloud and then Zack strode over to Aerith and scooped her up. Tifa watched her eyes flare green venom but before she could get much out in protest, Zack was already striding out the door with her. A very polite looking man, hands folded calmly in front of himself, stepped to the side as they went out the door. Without much expression beyond curiosity he watched them go – and then moved back over to the chair next to Aerith's now empty tube and sat down in it, picking up what looked like a technical manual to continue reading it.

"We've got most of the floor sealed off," Mace explained as she finally reinserted herself into Tifa's world. "Gotta secure the bathroom and all, you know? You want me to get you out of there and onto a real chair?"

Tifa looked down at the man she was next to and she shifted so that her body fit a bit better against his. She shook her head and resolutely took one of his slack, cold hands in hers, wrapping it tight to try to share her warmth with him. A second later she found a blanket draped over her shoulders and looked up in surprise to see her fiancée. He didn't say anything else and she gave him a tired, appreciative time. They would have to talk – but it would have to be later when this was all done.

"Everyone else is okay?" Tifa managed to ask and her throat didn't feel quite so sore anymore. Mace nodded and reached over to start rubbing her back absently. It felt like heaven to Tifa and she shut her eyes and hunched forward a bit so Mace could reach more.

"Everyone's fine," Mace told her. "Bruce is staying in his tube until he remembers how that he's only got two legs instead of four and that Jessie girl is sitting up with him. I think they've got a thing going on. Swift's busy on the VR hook up or he'd come over and tell you how great he was for helping pull you out of there." Tifa found herself suddenly buried in a fierce hug and Mace was speaking close to her.

"Gawd, Ayumi, I was so worried about you. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm okay," Tifa assured, wrapping an arm around the other girl's shoulders and holding her close. It felt so very good to hug like this and she burrowed in as close as she could without disturbing Cloud. "I'm okay."

After that there was surprisingly little to say and Tifa sat, rubbing absently at Cloud's hand while the usually talkative Mace fiddle in her seat next to her. Swift finally gave up on the headset he was wearing and set it aside. Speaking to White first, he then got up and slouched over to where his partners were, hauling over a chair of his own to straddled it backward.

He looked like hell warmed over.

Tifa reached out and gave his head a pat, neon colored hair springing back into place when the weight of her fingers left it and he raised his head to give her a lopsided, tired smile. Mace popped her sneakered feet up in his thigh and he automatically reached down to wiggle the toes of them absent-mindedly.

"He's not loose, Teef," he told her, voice soft. "I can find anybody on that sucker and he's not there. White's convinced he's floating somewhere in between and I think he's right." He exhaled. And then, after a very long moment, he looked up and met her eyes.

"They're gonna have to send someone back in after him and no on the VR either. It's gonna have to be full immersion hooked up to his output. White's still tryin' to get around it but – yeah, it ain't gonna work any other way. Whoever they send in is gonna have to find his head space and direct him back into his avatar."

He was watching her very steadily and Tifa watched him just as calmly back. Mace shifted eyes between them, watching both of their faces and didn't interrupt. Weak, Tifa smiled.

"Thanks," she murmured and then turned her attention on White who was just starting to swivel his wheelchair around to face everyone else. Before he could speak she simply, clearly told him:

"I'll go."


	17. Chapter 17

_looks like we're coming down the home stretch, gentle readers and best beloveds. Here's the calm before the storm._

Chapter 17:

It was dark. Not pitch black – he was aware of vague shapes in the darkness passing by from time to time. Clouds most likely because they didn't give him any feeling of threat or solidity. There was movement – but no sense of up or down. He assumed he was falling because there really was no such thing as an alternative to gravity but he couldn't tell.

He needed to check his altimeter.

He didn't, quite, remember how he'd gotten into this position, but given the situation he guessed that he must be on a jump. And from the amount of time that he'd been falling, fuzzy though his sense of that was, he guessed he was pulling a HALO. And that it was a night op.

Neither were particularly new for him and he had even, once or twice at the beginning he remembered, smelled oxygen and felt a pressure in his nose so he knew he had to be wearing the oxygen mask that let him breath at the high altitude they dropped from. He didn't feel cold – which was new – but he didn't feel warm either. He didn't feel much of anything in fact. Even the wind he should have been feeling pressing up against him while the earth below caused him to press down wasn't there.

He needed to check that altimeter.

It must have been a very long drop because he didn't remember exactly when it had started – which was disturbing for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that he hadn't been able to go over his mental checklist. Which meant he wasn't sure everything was where and how it should be – but more, meant that for some reason he'd skipped or forgotten his OCD habit.

Which meant he wasn't mentally prepared for whatever he was going to run into once he hit the ground.

He needed to check his altimeter or he'd be hitting the ground much more unexpectedly and permanently than he intended.

So – why hadn't he prepped before the jump? And – what was he jumping for? What was the mission, his objectives, his intel? Who was his PC, his precious cargo, that he was supposed to be finding and rescuing from their downed plane or fubar mission?

What had gone wrong that they needed to send him in to salvage what was left?

He didn't know and there was no way he would be jumping out of a plane without knowing what he was supposed to do when he hit the ground –

…and he really needed to check his altimeter.

_cloud…_

He made a sound, low in his throat, indicating he was listening even before he was really aware of what he was doing. What was he doing?

He was half-dozing, sitting upright and curled forward into himself in some cave that only God could find in the desert mountains, the night so dark in its interior that he couldn't even see his knees in front of his nose. Any second now, Black would slip back to nudge him with a boot toe before collapsing into a pile next to him and he'd go forward and take his watch and listen to the shaggy horses shift and the quiet snores of the robed men scattered around them.

Who put cavalry up against artillery? And wilder still – who expected it to win the way it did with a few well-directed hits from the gunship overhead? His drop and extract had turned into a whole lot more than he'd anticipated… but he'd found Black and everything else kind of didn't matter the way that single fact did.

_cloud…_

In the dark, he lifted his head or thought he did - just about as much as he thought he had been falling or thought he had been sitting.

Where was he?

That's right. It was nighttime and he was drifting in the Gulf. Must have just gotten back from a mission because one of the first things he did to detox was to jump off the edge of the little dock behind his house and into the salt water. So it must be nighttime and he must have just jumped and be floating in that weightless 'between' moment when the bubbles weren't rising and you weren't sure which way was up or down. He shut his eyes and relaxed.

It must have been a successful mission. He didn't have the bitter taste of copper and failure in his mouth.

…_steve…_

Ah.

There was the taste.

"Steve…"

He sat up and the water parted and there she was. Standing on the dock, sweet and perfect and heartbreaking in a simple sundress with her hair all loose and over her pale shoulders.

… I love you, he thought…

I think I never stopped.

"Steve – " she called his name again and she wasn't looking at him when she did it – or at anything else either, eyes fixed on some far distant in-between point. There was no reason for her to see him. He lived his life invisible and, even more than that, she shouldn't even be looking for him anymore.

She'd been the only one to see him, the real him, so many years ago and continents away.

She was calling for him now though.

He swam the short distance to the pier and pulled himself up onto it and he noticed, again, the distinct lack of temperature change. He was still in his fatigues and they had stains on them that he didn't recognize but wasn't surprised by, honest dark spots on his knees and elbows, more disturbing and spattered stains up one arm and across his hip on that side.

"Steve!" she called him again and he realized why entire classrooms must love her and yet cower in fear of her disapproval.

He'd never been able to bear the thought of her disapproval.

Her feet were bare on the worn, sun bleached wood of the dock and she looked as if she were listening very hard for something in that invisible space she was staring into. He thought of all the times he'd daydreamed about coming home and pulling her into the water with him so that she was laughing and wet and soft against him.

"I'm here."

She hadn't heard him approach and, in retrospect he hadn't heard himself either, but she made a soft noise and spun. It wobbled her off balance on the perfectly flat surface of the pier and everything about her wavered, unsteady and fragile. He saw the twilight ocean through her. Instincts older than any training, kicked in first and he caught her, hauling her up against him, holding tight because she might fall otherwise and she already had one scar on her head under the dark silk of her hair and it wouldn't be his fault again. This time he'd be fast enough and strong enough and smart enough and there wouldn't be any growing puddle of blood in a back alley while bullies ran away and he couldn't leave her but he wasn't enough for her, wasn't what she needed to save her.

"Steve – " her fingers were tight in the fabric of his clothing, his school uniform worn with both wear and washings compared to the starch stiffness of his schoolmates' clothes. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, felt the familiar brush of her school skirt against the fabric of his pants legs.

"It's all right. It's me. I'm here," he told her, determined not to let her go with him this time. Determined to make her stay in the schoolyard where she belonged and where she was safe.

Where she wouldn't get hurt and their lives together wouldn't come to an end because he was too stupid to keep her safe.

"There you are…" it was an exhale against his ear and sent the shivers down his back that he shouldn't recognize but did the way only a grown man could. The body he was holding didn't belong to a skinny, knees and elbows pre-teen girl.

"I'm sorry." The chest against his was fuller and there was so much soft skin waiting to be touched, barely hidden by her half top and that amazing short skirt. He felt the weight of the Buster against his back and had to shift his arm so the metal bracer on it didn't dig into her skin. "I didn't mean to lie to you." It came out easily, something he'd been saying inside his head for so long that his tongue repeated it without conscious decision. She knew his name – which mean it was over and she knew who he was and why – God… why was she still hanging on to him? Why was she letting him hold her? "Or – I did. Mean to lie. I just didn't mean for you to find out. I took advantage of you not knowing who I was and I'm sorry – but I'm not." All the smooth lines and the easy flow of words had dried up in him because… this was important. More important than just about anything in his life that he was allowed to care about. And the important things… he wasn't any good with the important things. Never had been. "I just – wanted to be with you one last time. I never thought I'd have the chance and when I did – I'm not sorry I did it. I'm sorry it hurt you. I didn't mean for that part to happen."

But then again – he never did. And she always got hurt anyway…

Hurt for her obviously meant something else though, something older, and it was what came out when she answered.

"Why did you leave?" It was blurted and she bit whatever was supposed to follow back – but it wasn't the pause of waiting for an answer. He could feel her body tensing, feel her gathering herself for the burst. But she didn't pull away. "I woke up in that hospital and everyone came to see me – but you." Her voice was young. "I got sent to live with my grandmother and it was the middle of nowhere and there was no one there and I wasn't allowed to play outside or run or jump or anything that might end up with me hurt and I was so alone and it was a cage! And the only time I got to go out was when we went to the post office to get our mail and she'd go in and I'd wait outside and I always knew there would be a letter from you but there never was. Not once. I kept waiting for you to come and find me but you didn't. I snuck a phone call in the middle of the night once but some other family was already living in your house and that's how I found out you'd moved because you didn't even tell me you were leaving!" She was so angry but she was holding him so tight, face pressed into his shoulder. "How could you leave me all alone like that? How could you forget about me so fast? You were my best friend in the whole world and I needed you – and you weren't there."

As soon as the words had started pouring out of her he'd gotten that gut deep feeling, the sick, pit of your stomach drop that told you you'd missed something impossibly important and there was no way to go back and fix it. He went very still as he held her and his eyes opened and stared sightlessly over her shoulder into absolute darkness. The raw emotion in her voice tore at him and so did the accusations even though he deserved every one of them. His chest went numb but somehow it hurt too.

"It's my fault," it struggled out of his tight throat and it hurt too. Because – it was his fault – all his fault. Even more of his fault than he'd realized.

"No!" she protested it and for the first time she actually sounded hard. Against the fabric of his shirt her fists pulled as if she was trying to shake him. Her voice was clearer when she spoke and he thought maybe she'd pulled her face back to try to look at his but he couldn't see anything. "No. That's not a good enough answer. I want to know why! You said you didn't think a man could forget me. You followed me into the game. You have been there, always, all this time. I want to know why you left me alone all those years ago. I deserve a real answer."

She did. Of course she did. His head bowed and he frowned, brows low.

"I thought – " he took a deep breath. "I thought you hated me. It was my fault you got hurt. Those bullies were after me and you got in the way. It was my fault you were unconscious for so long." He couldn't see her but he could feel her and one of his hands rose to cover the back of her head, cradling that spot where he knew the scar was. He felt her wince when he touched it but she didn't pull away. "My mother took me to the hospital every day. I sat in the lobby until visiting hours were over. Your father said I couldn't come into your room – that it was my fault. I remember he and my mom fought about it. When you woke up, he said I couldn't visit the hospital anymore. He said you were angry at me, that you blamed me. That you didn't want to see me, that it would just upset you. So I went by your house every day instead. I used to sit in the alley between the buildings and watch your window, waiting for you to come back, to walk past so I could tell you I was sorry. Except you didn't and I found out they'd sent you away."

His hands tightened the smallest bit on her and he remembered how angry he'd been, how furious – and how guilty he'd felt. Because – she wouldn't have left if it wasn't for him. If it wasn't for her spending time with him in the first place. He meant to stop there but the words kept pouring out and he pressed his face into her soft hair to try to muffle them when he realized he really was going to tell her the whole ugly thing. "I started getting into fights at school. More fights," he amended. "I was – terrible at home. My mom finally got the information from the school about where your records were transferred to. I think she snuck in somehow. I wrote you a letter every day and I gave them to the mailman myself. Every day. But I never heard back from you. And then – my father died, Yumi. Just some freak training exercise. I - kind of fell apart. Finished falling apart. I got expelled and broke some stuff at home and mom finally decided to move us to the States where we could stay with dad's family. It took me away from you – again – and I got worse." He had to stop again but he felt the nudge of her chin against his shoulder and she softly prompted:

"What happened?"

He made a soft sound.

"They were going to put me in a military school – but then dad's older brother showed up. He lived out in the middle of the nowhere in the mountains in Montana and he told me I could do anything I wanted with my life but he thought I was too scrawny and wimpy to do anything worthwhile. So I went out to his ranch to prove him wrong. Except he was right."

In his arms she made a protesting noise and he smiled against her hair and for the first time, he hugged her a little bit closer and it wasn't a desperate move.

"No, he really was right. I was just some angry, lost, punk-ass kid. But there was no one to fight out there and no one to help me when I needed it but him. He was an old retired Beret and he wasn't really up on kids or what to do with them so he just treated me like a smaller, slightly new recruit to his military team. Of two. He gave me space to figure out what was important and wasn't afraid to take me down a notch when he thought I was focusing on the wrong thing but he never raised his voice, never raised his hand and never left me stuck in whatever mess I'd gotten myself into for too long. He taught me that I could count on him and that being a man was about that. He taught me how to survive – but he taught me how to live too. When I was old enough, I told him I was going to join the military. He told me that I could do anything that I wanted in there but that God loved medics – and so did he. I joined the air force. I'm a pararescue jumper." At her curious noise he elaborated. "I'm the one they send in when a pilot goes down in hostile territory or when delicate equipment needs to be dropped somewhere sensitive or whenever things have just gone to shit and someone needs to pull everyone else out." He verbally stumbled to a stop then, having given her so much more of his life's story than he'd meant to. Embarrassed he cleared his throat but at least she wasn't pulling away from him.

"I kept meaning to find you. Hunt you down and apologize. That's what I'm supposed to do – find people and make things right. When Black was here for the VR games as Zack, one of the reasons I agreed to come was because I wanted to find you. I even got your work address… but I didn't have the nerve to see you. Not even from a distance. It had been so many years and I didn't know what I'd say or how you'd react or if you'd even recognize me anymore." He made a noise low in his throat. "I can drop into the middle of enemy territory in the middle of a pitch black night with no backup but what I'm carrying and I didn't have the guts to face you." He exhaled.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I should have known better. I should have known you better."

She was quiet for a moment, weighing him he knew and he stood there silently in the dark and let her. If anyone had a right to judge him and find him lacking – it was her. Finally, he felt her nod, her hair brushing soft against him.

"You're right. You should have known me better. But I should have known you better too." Her fingers shifted on his shirt and, softer, she said: "We'll have to work on that. Now. From now on. Okay?"

"Christ, yes," there was no stopping him after that and he cupped her face in his hands, careful to find it in the dark, and covered her mouth with his. And she answered. Like forgiveness and a welcome home after you'd been gone far, far too long, she answered. His arms slipped down to pull her closer into him and he sealed his mouth more completely over hers, going slow, taking his time because they had all the time in the world and he wanted to explore every inch of her, starting with the taste and heat of her mouth.

He'd wasted too many years without her. Too many years for both of them. Starting now, he was going to make that right. He was going to spend the rest of his life making that right.

Right after he convinced her to break it off with her fiancé.

"Yumi…"

"Yes."

It wasn't a question and so he paused, forehead touching hers, feeling her exhales against his lips. Quiet, confused, he said:

"I haven't asked anything yet."

"The answer's still yes," her voice told him in the dark. "Yes, I'm single now. Since after the zolom cave. You were right. I had to do that for myself no matter what I decided about us later on. And - yes, I want to spend time with you when this is done." Against his forehead, hers moved the smallest bit and somehow, he knew she was blushing. "Maybe yes to another question later on too. If – that's what we both want."

It was almost too much to take in all at once but - he got the important facts. He felt his heart catch in his chest at her level of faith in him. In them.

If Black had told her about his mother's wedding ring he was going to kill the man.

And then White would have to stand in for best man at the wedding…

"I love you," he told her and it was honest and sure – and easily far, far too early to be making confessions like that. She still smiled though, he could feel it and her kiss found the edge of his mouth.

"It's about time you told me."

The laughter was unexpected when it hit him and he gathered her close in his arms as it coughed roughly out of him, lowering his face to press it into his shoulder.

"That's my girl," he murmured and felt the way her arms tightened in a hug around him.

"Come on," she agreed. "Let's go home."

"Hn," he nodded against her, lifting his head and straightening, making sure to hold her tightly. He wasn't about to lose her now. Voice calm, she recited a string of numbers and words that made no sense to him but had to be some kind of activation code. He wasn't even sure how the physics of this whole thing worked anymore considering how tangled up in computer program his conscious was – but he trusted White and he trusted her. The black around them went streaked with colors and he squinted his eyes against the sudden light. He felt her tuck her face down into his shoulder and he felt his own stomach lurch. His ears popped and he felt an inhale move through him that was ice cold and hurt and cleared him all the way down. There was a sound, like a train or wind rushing past –

And then suddenly he was flat on his back, arms still full of soft, warm female as she lay on top of him. He blinked and his vision went unfocused and then sharp again. His mouth felt dry and he grunted just to make sure his lungs were still moving. Above him he saw a night sky and the sides of dull, gray colored buildings. In his nose he could smell the dank chill of enclosing walls and the much fainter smell of gun grease and brine. Turning his head he saw the side of a building and beyond that the end of the alley and a clear view of -

"…shit…"


	18. Chapter 18

_this should have been out last week but I couldn't seem to upload to ffnet. This should also have been the last chapter but... well, it's not. I love it when the characters don't tell me what's going on. There's also a bit of gore in this chapter and you should probably expect it in the next one too. head's up.  
_

Chapter 18:

"This is bad."

Tifa vocalized what had been going through both of their heads since they'd realized where they were and next to her, flat against the wall and peering around the corner, Cloud grunted in response. The code that White had given her was supposed to drop them in a 'safe zone'.

Junon was pretty far from a 'safe zone' to Tifa's way of thinking.

"Maybe I got the code wrong," she whispered, still upset with herself over doing something this drastically wrong. Cloud's hand squeezed hers and he muttered:

"I doubt it," at the same time that White's voice suddenly sounded, calm and low in her ear, causing her to jump and bite back a squeaking sound of surprise.

"You recited the code correctly. The problem appears to be with Cloud."

"'Bout time you showed up," Cloud growled softly, ducking back into the shelter of the alley and edging Tifa deeper into its recess. "What's the problem?"

It was odd, after all the times of listening to other people mumble to their gamers, to be able to hear both side of the conversation and Tifa watched Cloud's face as White answered.

"Apparently you have got a virus that has managed to wrap itself around the core of your avatar. I can't tell when it was inserted but I would guess sometime during your last visit to the game with Black. Were there ever times things felt… off?"

"I spent the first half of the game acting like a decorative potted plant and the second half comatose. So yeah – maybe," Cloud wasn't being helpful but somehow Tifa wasn't surprised.

"Hey – you were a _nice_ potted plant," Black's voice suddenly intoned. "All spiky and friendly and soft and – "

"My guess would be that it was inserted sometime during your transition from plant to vegetable," White's cool voice overrode Black's. "The point is when you reentered the game, it activated. You appear to be the open door the hackers are using to let themselves in and take things over." There was a brief pause and Tifa, still blinking in shock, expected White to apologize for his abruptness. Instead, his voice was even calmer and flatter when it came back on. "I'm sorry. I should have caught the change in the binary when I first began upgrading your avatar. It unfortunately traps your mental impulses into the game. Until I can unravel the code from your program, pulling you out would result in death."

Cloud was quiet next to her, blue eyes staring hard at the opposite wall, slim brows down. Gentle she rubbed a hand against his arm to let him know she was still there. They were in this together. He looked down at her and she already knew he was going to ask White to pull her. The look she gave him in return was deadly.

"I'm staying." She stated it clearly so that not only would he hear it but the others in the medical room would too. "Until the end."

He looked as if he was going to argue, and so she turned up the heat behind The Look. The self-same Look that had quelled a dozen elementary school rebellions. He caved faster than most five year olds.

"Okay," his hand found and covered hers on his arm. "But I want you to have a emergency exit for her, White. If things go bad and I go down, I want you to yank Tifa the second it happens."

"The second before even," White's voice was unruffled and steady again. "I can program her avatar to kick her loose if yours starts to collapse."

"No – " she started it with a shake of her head but it was Cloud's turn to fix impossible, inflexible blue eyes on her.

"That's the deal," he stated. "That's the only way I can concentrate enough on something other than you to be effective." His eyes softened and he reached up with his other hand to cup her cheek, lowering his forehead to rest it against hers. "You're PC now, sweetheart. My very own Precious Cargo."

"Precious _Useful_ Cargo," Zack chimed in. "Swift says he's going to upgrade you into an ass kicking machine, Teef!"

"Indeed," White's dry voice sounded again. "As this is, in fact, end game, we've hacked the codes for all the upgrades to put you at peak performance. Limit breaks, materia settings, hit points."

"Leeeeeroy Jeeenkins!" came from somewhere in the background and sounded suspiciously like Barret in his more nerdy, youthful form. From the sounds of it, there were high fives being exchanged.

"Something like that," White sounded, barely, put upon. "Our friend the video game designer seems to be adding his own flares to the situation. He's quite… enthusiastic. We've disallowed the upgrade of your physical chest features, Tifa."

"Thanks?"

"You're welcome," the way he said it indicated she did, indeed, owe White a great deal of thanks for that favor. Cloud lifted his forehead from hers but kept his arms around her. His head turned to focus on the main building in Junon, set back from the canon.

"So we go in and take them down," his voice was hard. And a little bit eager.

"You go in and take them down," White agreed.

"And we take them down here!" Black was, if nothing else, easily enthused.

"We?" Cloud asked and Black reassessed.

"Well, me mostly. But Red and Jessie are coming to play backup and hump the hostages out once I start being all flashy and distracting."

Cloud didn't protest civilians getting in on the action and just grunted:

"Be careful."

Black's voice was surprisingly subdued as he answered:

"You too. I owe you a dinner once you're out of there, remember?"

"Most expensive place I can find." Gentle, Cloud pulled Tifa closer and stepped back deeper into the shadows as a group of what might have once been troopers slithered past the head of the alley. "White – crack this place and get me a way in."

"Power upgrade coming online in 3… 2… 1." Swift's voice came over the speaker for the first time and it made Tifa relax just before the vertigo hit. Cloud braced his back against the wall of the alley and Tifa braced against him as she shut her eyes and the world swayed sickeningly. After a minute it settled. Eyes still closed, she heard Cloud ask:

"Can they track that?"

"No," White's voice was sure. "We have two decoys running around with your amplified signatures. Mace is – having a hard time keeping them in character." The dry tone just hinted at all kinds of horrible things. "But she is most distracting playing them."

Somewhere in the background, a familiar voice started singing 'sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love – than the steamy hot monkey sex'. Everyone ignored it even if Tifa felt her ears starting to burn.

"Don't worry," Mace interrupted her singing now that she'd made a point. "I'm being _really_ distracting with you two."

"That's – great, Mace," Tifa managed to choke.

"Ignore her, babe," Swift's voice came over the receiver. "It's the only way to stay sane. Okay, you can take out a concrete wall with your punch now. Go light the first few times you use it or the way it goes through things might throw you off balance. Cloud-o, you've got the shiniest blade that ever was. If you want you can chop down buildings with that thing and not worry about dislocating your shoulder in the process. Same advice as Teef. Go easy until you get the hang of it. Materia is at frying point for everything and you've got skin like Teflon. Don't go messing up my hard work by getting KO'd, okay?"

"Understood," Cloud's voice was the calm, soft tone he always used when he was settling into a fighting mind-set.

"I have your insert point," White's voice was just as calm. "End of the alley, sewer door. Go left. Expect monsters but if you keep it quiet, Mace's distractions should be enough to keep from triggering any alarms. They attack each other quite often."

"Got it. How's communication going to be?"

"No guarantees," White answered. "But I will do my best to stay with you as long as I can."

"Understood. Bastard on the top floor or the lower one?"

"Top floor. Our hacker enjoys watching."

"Yee haw!" Mace's enthusiasm was disturbing. Cloud ignored it in favor of catching Tifa's hand and starting down the alleyway, headed for the dead end at the back.

"Is Tifa rigged to extract if I go?" he asked and at White's affirmative, he nodded, letting go of her hand long enough to drop down onto his heels in front of the manhole cover, rusty and ancient looking. It looked as if it had been there forever. As if it wasn't just computer pixels inside a giant machine. Cloud's long fingers went into the grips of it and he pulled it up and aside, almost losing his balance in the process.

"Told ya," Swift snorted from the earpiece and Cloud made a noise in his throat.

"It feels like cardboard."

"It ain't. That's all you, beefman. Don't get cocky with it."

Cloud raised his eyes to her and Tifa saw all the familiar things she'd always recognized and never been able to place before she realized who he was in them. She went to her knees next to him.

"I don't do suicide missions," Cloud's voice was quiet and raw at its edges. "So we're getting out of this and when it's over I want – I want you. We'll take it as slow as you want but – I'm in this all the way, Yumi. I'm not going to lose you again."

She was trying to think of the right way to answer that. The words to say that would carry him through the battle and promise every tomorrow and then Mace's voice interrupted with:

"I'm tellin' you, hot steamy monkey sex!"

So she just reached out and caught the front of Cloud's shirt, pulling him close to kiss him hard. It was forward of her but she blamed it on the situation. Cloud didn't seem to mind at all and as soon as he got over the second or two of surprise, his response was enthusiastic. And thorough. And very, very heated. Tifa found him over her, hands on the ground on either side of her hips and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to arch closer. There was no such thing as too close, too forward, or too much. She wasn't going to lose him –

Even if she hadn't yet figured out how to save him from the virus.

They were both panting when she finally broke away and there was stunned silence on the other side of the ear pieces. For a long moment, their eyes locked and there was nothing more than what was already in them that they needed to say. Not now. Maybe, once this was all over – but for now, everything they needed was already there. Gentle, Cloud reached up and cupped her palm in his hand, the worn leather of his glove a reassuring feel. Barely, almost too small to see, his lips softened and curved at their edges.

"That's my girl," he murmured.

And then he was pulling away and disappearing down the manhole, not bothering with the metal rungs that led down into the darkness. She heard the quiet, small splash and, soft in her ear, she heard Cloud asking White:

"Little bit of NOD?"

"Done." White responded calmly and Tifa slipped her legs over the side of the hole and whispered:

"Tell him to move out of the way."

"Already done," White's voice was immensely calmly and Tifa pushed off and let herself drop, flexing her knees the way she's learned from her fighting. Her boots hit the shallow water and she hardly felt the jar of the fall. The stench was the same though. In the pitch dark, things took on a green tint and Cloud was a warm almost white green as he stepped close to her.

The monster rounding the corner was a duller green. But very visible.

It fell apart into showering chunks after one hit from her. Tifa winced in disgust and than cast a worried glance at her fist. It – hadn't felt like much of a blow at all. Next to her, Cloud gave a thoughtful grunt and then headed deeper into the tunnels.

The monsters were all like though. A single blow, a single slice from Cloud's sword and they fell apart like rotten cheese. It was almost disturbing how easy it was and yet, in a strange way, Tifa was glad for the chance to fight them. It let her get used to the new strength she had and how much impact or spin her moves now threw out. It was strange but she was glad of the chance to adjust. She and Cloud worked and moved forward in silence and in the strange green shadows, his face was set, only the slight narrowing of his blue eyes and the immobility of his lips any indication that he was in a stressful situation. Tifa kept waiting for something horrible to jump out of the shadows and cast worried glances into the darkness of the ceiling above them from time to time but nothing did. Even the monsters were random and easy to avoid. It was… too easy – and it was making her nervous.

"There," Cloud's voice was as quiet as the eerie green darkness and she stopped behind him, unable to resist the temptation to nestle just slightly against his back. There was a wide space of shallow looking water and then a single door, sealed with a round wheel that reminded Tifa of submarine doors. Across the door however, she would make out the dark shape of a body, tied spread-eagle and unmoving. From the distance, she couldn't see who it was – but her stomach took an unpleasant drop and went cold all the same.

"White?" it didn't lift above a barely there mutter and White's voice came back almost immediately in answer to Cloud's question.

"I detect no traps or alarms. Organic matter however is registering. I have no identity for the person across the room though I will note that several of the actors to be employed by the game are not yet accounted for."

"So it's either a computer generation or it just might be someone we know."

"Yes. I would proceed with caution."

Cloud didn't snort but Tifa could almost hear it all the same. He reached back and gave her hip a light squeeze. He didn't have to say 'stay close' for her to understand that either.

Slow but not unhurried, he circled the wide room, avoiding the middle entirely. Their boots made soft swishing noises in the water but the figure strapped to the door didn't move in the slightest. As they got closer, Tifa was able to pick out more details and her heart sunk.

"Biggs…" she murmured and felt Cloud's low noise of understanding. Close enough, they could see that it was indeed the last missing member of AVALANCHE. He hadn't be with them or the rest of the team when the Plate had dropped and Tifa had to guiltily admit, she hadn't really given him too much thought afterward. Now his body hung heavy and limp and she was glad of the blur the strange green lighting gave the details.

Someone with either knives or claws had gone at him. And from the looks of it, they had done so for a very long time. She had to look away as her mind tried to fill in details and her hand caught and clung to the back of Cloud's shirt. He made a soft sound in his throat, both pity and guilt. And yet he still searched the body carefully visually before he touched it.

"Don't see any traps or trip wires," he finally murmured. "Stand behind me anyway. I'm going to cut him down enough for us to get through."

She felt as if she should protest. It was the body of a companion that, whether she'd liked him or not, had gotten tangled in this mess with them and maybe, if they'd paid more attention, he wouldn't be here now. Except – except he wasn't breathing and as much as she wanted to respect him and his death – ending this sick game was more important. So she just made a soft noise and shifted behind Cloud further, hand spreading against his back. Careful, so that it would jar the body the least, he laid one hand on the body and brought the blade of his sword against the nearest wire.

And Biggs eyes snapped open in his ruined face.

Tifa had just a second to swallow a noise and then the dead man's jaw dropped open and he screamed.

It was a scream that jumped in pitch so fast it hurt and Tifa clamped her hands over her ears in instinctive defense. The scream was impossible to block out though and it climbed in pitch, inhuman and sharp as an ice pick driving through her head. In front of her Cloud stumbled backward and then his sword swung.

Biggs' body split and black pitch spilled out – and still the broken jaw screamed. Black spots danced in front of Tifa's eyes as it got higher in pitch and Cloud went to a knee in front of her. Desperate she grabbed the lolling head and it came loose when she wrenched.

She would never, in all of her life, forget the way it felt.

With one last effort, knees already going loose and disjointed, she shoved it under the thin layer of water. For a second – it worked –

And then her eyesight went entirely black and that was all she remembered.


	19. Chapter 19

_it's about damn time. But - finally, the muses have decided to tell me what's going on. You know, now that we're pretty much done. In the good news department I should be able to wrap this up in a timely manner now. Sorry for the long wait and thank you all, both best beloved and gentle readers, for being so patient and not giving up hope. And thanks to Fenikkusuken for both the spelling catches and assuring me I hadn't just spewed jabber onto the page.  
_

Chapter 19:

He had… the mother of all headaches.

It started somewhere in the back of his skull near the base and worked its way forward, getting thinner and sharper the closer it got to his eyes and the front of his head. It was, Cloud decided with what little thought he could put toward something other than the pain, the very _last_ time he ever did whatever it was he'd done the night before. Until, stubborn, he forced his eyes open and realized –

Oh yeah.

In front of him was what looked like it should be an office room in ShinRa style. The carpet was red, the walls were barren of anything but a few framed prints of the ShinRa logo and the almost obscenely cute motivational poster he supposed every office had to have of a cute kitten draped from a tree branch with the cheery 'hang in there' print underneath.

As if 'hanging in there' was going to solve the kitten's problem. It needed to either let go or scrabble it's way back up onto the branch. 'Hanging in there' was going to sap its strength and make it unable to control its fall when it finally did.

There was a large, darkly wooden desk that took up most of the office space, cluttered with the expected paraphernalia and, lounging on the desk tying rubber bands together was a pale haired kid Cloud had never seen before in his life.

Before he moved and admitted to being aware, Cloud took stock of his situation. He was on his knees in front of the desk, hands cuffed behind him as well as a cuff that locked his elbows painfully close together. His legs were free, which was his captor's mistake but his effectiveness was still severely hampered. One of his shoulders felt dislocated. A careful testing of the bonds showed they were going to hold.

A quick dart of his eyes at the area around him garnered him not only a nasty case of vertigo and a renewal of the pressing headache but also a glimpse of beautiful, long brown hair carelessly falling across the floor. Ignoring the man on the desk, he turned his head to focus on Tifa. She was tied the same way he was but she was laying instead of kneeling and by her breathing she was all right but still unconscious. The tight band around his chest loosened the smallest bit and he felt his lips curve at their edges despite himself.

"She's pretty, isn't she?"

The voice from the desk, almost too smooth to be real had him turning his head to glare just as much as the words did and he saw that the boy was sitting up now, swinging his legs against the wood front of the desk, heels hardly making any sound.

"She's mine." He clarified it, voice throaty and raw feeling as it came out. The boy shrugged.

"She's a meatbag," he dismissed her with a waved hand, trailing colorful rubber bands. "The only thing that makes her special is that she got to be there front row seat for the day the world changed."

Cloud's lips twitched and his eyes narrowed. Not at the dismissal, he was glad the guy in front of him wasn't going to be prone to spend a lot of time thinking about Tifa but rather at what this sounded like the beginning of.

Shit.

The guy was going to monologue.

It was one of the oldest villain tropes in the world. The Illiad had villain monologues in it. Cloud had never understood why the opposition felt the need to ramble on about their 'great plan', especially not if it was real life and the audience wasn't waiting to be filled in on a relevant plot point. But ramble they did and oftentimes they video taped it these days and put it up on web sites for the world to see. Just before they went on a killing spree at the local mall or cut the head off of a captured journalist.

And, as much as he hated it, Cloud was going to lower himself to their level and play for time by asking:

"How's that supposed to happen?"

It was all he could do not to roll his eyes or grit his teeth when the pale boy on the desk burst into a bright, not entirely sane grin and spread his hands wide. Crap. He even felt filthy playing along. He was almost glad for the way the headache was so intently trying to break out past his skull that it was vaguely distracting.

"I'm so glad you asked! It's through your help that it's possible, you know. I could have done it without you but it would have been much harder. You showed me the way." The smile was childishly pleased. "I'm going to become the internet."

"You mean, take over the internet," Cloud corrected the grandiose error but the other boy just shook his head, still smiling.

"Oh no. I'm going to _become_ the internet."

He probably really should have been playing along better. He was supposed to be prolonging this after all. 'Hanging in there'. But Cloud couldn't help the snort that escaped him and his dry:

"Good luck with that."

"You don't believe me," the pale boy didn't seem perturbed, slipping off of the desk to stalk in front of it. Next to him, Cloud felt Tifa stirring and he made a soft humming sound to warn her to stay put. Her wine dark eyes blinked open but other than that she didn't move. Their captor wasn't paying attention.

"You don't believe me but you should. Soon I will be everything and everywhere. Do you know of any developed country that doesn't rely on it's internet for everything? Businesses run through the internet. Stores don't even keep stock of their stock anymore, they let their computers do that and order automatically when they start to run low. No one knows how to use a map. It's all online. Everyone's money is tied up online. Banks don't keep paper records. Most people don't even get their statements in paper anymore. The governments store all their secrets in their computers with their internet access. Even the security systems that aren't connected to the internet are still connected to computers that are connected to the internet. There's not a computer today that's not made with a built in wifi connection whether it's turned on or not. The internet is everywhere and it runs everything. And soon – that's going to be me."

Tifa had apparently given up on pretending to be asleep and she struggled to sit up, shifting to lean against Cloud's side as she did. It gave up her element of surprise but Cloud understood. He would have wanted to face this kind of insane upright and aware. The boy ignored her but Cloud was glad of the warmth of her body against his.

"You're one of the terrorists holding the hostages at the TV station, aren't you?"

"Brilliant," the boy mocked him with a roll of his eyes. "And you figured that out all by yourself?"

Cloud ignored it.

"And you're hooked into the game the same way we are?"

"Oh yes. That was the easy part. There were so many extra pods just waiting to be filled with 'teammates'. All I had to do was… 'take' one of the spare spots." He sounded amused as he added: "It's not as if the original player was going to need it anymore."

Cloud felt his jaw set just a little but he refused to jump to conclusions. The kid in front of him could have murdered the preparing contestant… or he could have just snuck into a room that was still being prepped. Either way there was nothing Cloud could do about it now. The boy was hoping for a response and Cloud just have him a narrow look.

"It still means you're a meatbag too. You can't become a computer program."

It amused the pale boy and he all but giggled. Then, again for the dramatic flare, he threw his arms wide and tossed back his head.

"I already am!" His pale eyes shifted to look down at Cloud. "And you are too. Even she is." He pointed to Tifa and she shifted to press against Cloud's shoulder a bit more. He was just glad it wasn't the dislocated one. The side of her bound hands touched his but she wasn't passing him any lock pick or key. It was just more skin on skin contact and he'd take it.

"That's – " he had to pause and think about it. "Not the same."

But… he wasn't so sure.

The boy made an amused sound and wandered around to the other side of the desk.

"Not yet. But soon. The virus we planted in you two years ago is almost done adjusting now. It knows how to catch a perfect replica of it's host and then I'll leave my flesh behind and become one with the virus. I'll become one with the internet. And I'll be everywhere and do anything I want and no one will be able to stop me." He leaned forward abruptly and spread his hands so that they smacked down on the desk to support him. His eyes were very alive with a feverish fire.

"You see? It's all really very simple actually. And you showed me the way. I owe it all to you… Big Brother."

Cloud didn't appreciate the label and the look he shot the other male showed it. He resisted the urge to bare his teeth though.

"I'm still carrying the virus, aren't I?"

"Oh yes…" the gesture was flowing and flared and Cloud looked at where the hand was pointing.

The arm he'd thought was dislocated. Instead he saw it was –

…it was…

Sweet Jesus.

It was still vaguely arm shaped and it was still attached to him. He couldn't see much of it thanks to the bindings but when he twisted his head he could see –

There was a blank amount of horror that went into realizing that what was on the side of him, attached to him, had taken the place of the flesh and blood that should be there. Or… partially was…

At first glance it looked like he had a coating of slightly dull black down the skin of his exposed arm, almost like soot or some kind of smeared ash. Looking closer though – and damn his enhanced eyesight – he saw it was actually minuscule small strands, like the tendrils on a sea anemone.

And they were moving.

He had to swallow down the bile to realize that they were swaying. As if they were collecting data from the very air. Alive and definitely not a part of him at all for all they had almost entirely invaded his arm. All the way from where his gloves hid them to up his shoulder and he felt the sudden spear of animal panic to wonder if they'd reached his throat yet.

His face.

He fought it down hard. There was no place for emotion or panic in a situation like this. The only way he was going to get himself and Tifa out of this was if he kept his head and dealt with things rationally.

It didn't stop him from cringing inside when Tifa finally managed to twist around his body enough to get a look at it herself and made a small noise of horror. He pushed it away, compartmentalized it the way he did so much of what happened in his life and he focused on the immediate. His voice was cold and steady.

"If I've got the virus than it's duplicating me. Correct?" The slight narrowing of the other male's eyes gave him his answer and he let himself sneer at their captor.

"In that case, this is my show and you're nothing."

The boy's hands slammed into the desk and he snarled.

"Don't think I'm stupid! The virus needs to perform a test before it goes fully active. You're the test. And once it's done making a fake copy of you, it will be ready to make a real copy of me! Your copy will be nothing but a mindless drone. A puppet. But mine – I'll be perfect! The virus' perfect copy to take over the entire world!"

"But it won't be you."

It was the first time she'd spoke up and, even if Cloud could hear the slight tremble in her voice, she was still determined. For the first time the boy really focused on Tifa.

"Who cares?" he asked as if explaining it to a child. "My copy will be enough of what I want to be self-aware and to do what I want to do. I don't have to remember my mother or what my favorite color is to make that happen. It will be enough of me to matter."

Which was when the wall behind the boy exploded.

"I believe," the dry, calm voice in his ear said as Cloud dove to use the desk as cover, using his own body to both shield and move Tifa's. "That the correct term is 'the cavalry has arrived."

"White!" Cloud didn't know whether to curse or cheer at the sudden sound of his support kicking back on.

"Apologies for not arriving earlier," White continued unperturbed. "Black was laying down a diversion. We are currently in the process of rescuing the hostages in real time. Now seemed an appropriate time to rescue you as well.

"In other words, you only just now managed to hack through his security," Cloud translated and White made a quiet huffing noise.

"He's very good. Trained by one of the best though he was always too impulsive. It was – rather disappointing but he had to be let go. He's improved – though not enough."

"Yo! Enough with the chit chat." Swift's voice came over the comm. "Teef, Cloud – you gotta take this guy down. Whatever funked up thing he's doin' to you, Cloud, he's got rolling on himself too. Black's got the gal that was supposed to be playin' Vincent and they're tryin' to find what room they stashed glow boy in. Jessie an' Red an' Wedge are getting the hostages to safety which means the cops'll be here soon. We can stall but not too long and who knows what the men in lab coats will try to take over once they get back in here. Take 'em down hard, guys and don't leave any pieces behind."

"Roger." Cloud was already starting to shift before he remembered his cuffs but Tifa was ahead of him.

"This might help," her voice was surprisingly calm and he felt her hands on the cuffs. Looking down in surprise he saw that hers were already broken, dangling like gaudy bracelets from her arms. She gave him a brief, tight smile.

"Cloud… I can pile drive Ruby WEAPON. These cuffs were pathetic."

In that instant, he fell in love with her all over again and he managed to murmur:

"That's my girl," before she tore the links between the cuffs apart like tissue. Her hand lingered briefly on the black of his useless arm and he felt the hum of it all the way up his shoulder and into the headache that had been demanding his attention for so long. On the other side of the desk there was an ominous swelling going on and Cloud was reminded of the monster they'd found in ShinRa tower so long ago in the game, a nightmare created of everything that had been available.

It, almost, distracted him from realizing exactly what the headache was. And how it's demands for his attention were so much more dangerous and deadly than a simple hangover.

He grabbed Tifa with his good arm and rolled as the desk suddenly burst apart in splinters.

"I know what you and your little meatbag friends did, brother!" the boy's voice was shrill and Cloud kept rolling as a giant hand made of concrete bits and ShinRa logos, knuckle the picture of a small hanging kitten, pounded down where they'd been.

"It doesn't matter. I'll avenge my brothers and I'll still rule the world. But I won't be as nice as I was going to be before!"

Cloud scrambled to his feet but the searing up his arm that had activated at Tifa's touch was only growing more intense and the pressure at the back of his skull made it feel as if it was going to pop off. The boy was off to the side of the now gaping hole in the wall and a huge monster of bits and pieces of building lurched forward between them. At his side, Tifa shook out her fingers and then clenched her hands into fists and Cloud thought she'd never looked more fiercely beautiful.

He would have liked the time for one more kiss.

"If you take care of the golem, I'll take care of the nut case," he murmured and she nodded, brows down. And then, for just a second she turned and flashed him a look and he knew… somehow… that she'd fallen in love with him.

"Be careful," she said – and then she was charging forward and the entire world was bending as energy gathered at her fists. Cloud gave it a single heart beat – long enough for the monstrosity to focus on the slim woman rushing toward it – and then he plunged forward as well.

The boy saw him coming and he let out a high yell – but Tifa's fist drove the concrete monster backward from its attempts to save him, plowing it into and then through a wall into the next room of the building. Cloud could feel the pounding at the back of his skull, the way the burning had spread up the side of his throat and there were flickers of light and traces of blue squiggles across his sight on that side of his face. Reaching out as the other male tried to scramble away, he caught a fistful of that pale hair and used it to yank the boy's head down and solidly into his rising knee.

"All right, you fucker." He saw terrified pale eyes rising to look at him but he wasn't talking to the kid. Bringing his ruined hand up to grab the side of that pale face with a grip like steel he grit out: "You want to make your useless test copy, let's do this. And to hell with what you're going to get out of it."

There was a roar like an ocean wave in his ears and a flare of blue fire in front of his eyes. Under his hand the pale boy started to scream as black spread over both of them, clawing uselessly at Cloud. And somewhere… far away, he heard the way Tifa screamed his name and he felt the second White's failsafe kicked on and yanked her out of the game.

It let him smile.

And then the blue fire and black tendrils invaded his brain and that was his last honest thought.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

She sat next to the bed side and listened to the soft beep that ran a slow, steady counterpoint to the rain falling so erratically outside the window. It had been raining all day, off and on, and instead of making things worse the steady tap against the glass seemed to make everything almost dreamlike.

She thought – she thought she very much needed to feel the disconnect of dreaming.

"…ne," she said it soft and gentle, reaching out to brush the shaggy overhang of his bangs away from his cool forehead. "It's raining. Can you hear it? Your mother used to say that the angels were weeping when it rained but that sometimes they were tears of joy…"

The man laying so pale and still on the bed didn't respond other than to continue to steadily inhale and exhale, the respirator next to his bed pumping in rhythm for him. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It was a simple cycle but it was all she had to cling to.

Cloud… Steve – was gone.

She tried to tell herself it wasn't so, that whatever had happened to him after she'd been pulled from the game hadn't been permanent. That he'd wake up from the coma he'd been frozen in since then. That, somehow, the doctors or the scientists that had worked and run invasive tests and poked and prodded him like a dead fish would figure out how to wake him up.

That there was still someone in there to be woken up.

But… it was raining. And today was the day they pulled the plug on the extensive life support that kept him alive.

Things had… fallen apart after she'd woken up in her own body, head still spinning with the rapid extract from the game she'd been in the middle of. It had seemed as if every siren in the company's building had been going off. The computers had been nothing but sparks and smoke, strange people had been pouring into the room in both police and building security uniforms and her friends, the ones that had gone through all of this with her, had been hustled out and away from each other so fast, there hadn't been time to protest or fight it.

For most of them at least. White, Black and Swift had stayed with her. And she'd stayed with Cloud, digging her nails into his clothing to hang on at some points where someone had tried to separate them. Mace had been carried yelling from the room, promising both vengeance and a return and it hadn't taken her long to carry out both threats. Everyone else however had been swept away and it was only as the days had turned into weeks that they'd all managed to find each other again. Steve – their Cloud – had been the focal point that drew them all to the small, private hospital room his body had been taken to.

The terrorists that had taken over the building and hijacked the game were all dead. The news had reported it and White had later on confirmed it on one of his ghosting visits where he slipped into the room and stood silent for hours before slipping back out again. She supposed she should be glad – or sad – or horrified… but she didn't have any extra emotion to spare for anyone else. Whatever the young terrorist in the computer had wanted to achieve he hadn't. The internet ran as it always had and the computer systems at the company had been purged. The 'game' was dead and there was no hope of another renewal of the contract on it but the attention it had received had more than paid for it. She supposed there was irony in there somewhere but she just didn't have the energy to find it.

"I did my hair," mindful of the wires attached to his body and laying across the bed like life sucking tendrils, she crawled onto the thin mattress next to him, tucking in against his side the way she'd gotten so good at doing these past weeks. "Just for you. I thought – I thought you'd want me to look nice today. I know it sounds silly but – " her voice choked off and she shook her head, pressing her face against him. She couldn't – she couldn't do this. She couldn't let him go. Not so soon.

Except it was what his living will stated he wanted and the doctors had already put it off as long as they could. She shut her eyes hard and knew that wearing mascara today had been a bad idea. Getting herself beautiful had been a stupid idea anyway, knowing what today was but there was a part of her that thought – hoped – if she looked attractive enough he'd want to wake up to see her again. Or… if that failed it was a matter of pride - that she look her best today of all days. He wouldn't want her haggard and gray and she didn't want to be that type of woman either.

Except now she was going to smear her mascara and ruin the entire effort.

"Please don't go," she whispered it brokenly against him. "I just found you again. Please don't go this time."

In a perfect story, the words would have woken him… but this wasn't a story and his body continued its steady breathing without a flicker of change. She wrapped her arms around him tighter and tried to pretend he was only sleeping and it would all be all right in the morning.

"Shhh!"

The door to the room pushed open with the harsh reminder of silence and she reluctantly lifted her head. It wasn't time yet. They had another ten minutes before the doctors were supposed to come in and unhook everything. If the doctors were early… if they were early she'd fight them tooth and claw – or at least with all the verbal browbeating of a teacher – for those extra ten minutes. Instead it was Wedge.

Or rather Wedge's player. He had made it out of the game alive, unhooked just before the terrorists had taken over the system and he'd been in the group of hostages that Black and Jessie had rescued.

He was also an intern at the hospital and so Tifa had gotten used to seeing his cheerful face day after day. His kind eyes were one of the only reasons she felt comfortable leaving Cloud here each night to go home and go to sleep.

Now however, he looked worried and seconds later, she realized why as he hustled a large group of people into the room. She recognized White and Black and Mace and Swift – who surprised her because he was phobic about hospitals. Red and Jessie were there too and she thought she caught a glimpse of Lily and Aerith beyond the door before it swung shut again. Sitting up, feeling slow and lost, she blinked in puzzlement at them and the huge amount of gear they were carrying.

"What-?" she began.

"Apologies," White's voice was just as calm as ever even though he was already starting to set up the equipment around the bed. Black and Swift were moving with frantic speed as well while Mace handed them bits and pieces without even being asked. A strange shudder when down through Tifa as she sat up more fully, one of her hands going to find Cloud's from habit.

"What's going on?"

"White's got a burr up his butt," Swift answered but there was a strange flush over his face that she knew from experience meant he was excited despite the sarcastic drawl of his voice.

"I have no such thing," White answered mildly. "I have simply been monitoring the programs on the company computer – "

"Hacking," Mace supplied cheerfully as she handed over a small wrench. White ignored her as he continued to work.

"- and I have noticed several strange pulses on it."

"He thinks Cloud's still alive!" Black supplied and Wedge, standing at the door, made more frantic hushing noises at the loud excitement in the taller man's voice.

"What?" It had her full attention now and her brain seemed to shrug off the strange numb feeling it had wrapped around itself for weeks now. White's eyes narrowed.

"I believe that impulses from Cloud's mind may still be active in the system. That is all."

"He means Cloud's brain may still be there." Mace was grinning like an idiot and Tifa felt tears fill her eyes. But a part of her held back and a second later as Swift spoke up she understood why.

"Doesn't mean anything, Teef. Even if the program did copy his brain, there's no telling what it copied and what it messed up or missed out on. It might not even be him. We could be pulling that little snot nosed kid's signature. But White thinks it's time for a last ditch effort and we figured it's now or never. Sorry," he winced. "Didn't want to tell you before we were sure an' get your hopes up."

"No, it's okay," she turned her head in time to see Black handing the familiar head gear over to Wedge before diving back in to hooking wires up to computer towers. White was in the corner now, setting up a sleek silver laptop. Wedge came over with the headset but he hesitated next to the bed.

It went without saying that he could get fired for this and banned from the practice but that wasn't in his eyes when he looked at Tifa. Instead, his voice was soft as he said:

"If this bring him back… what we get back might be worse than just letting him go."

For a long moment there was only silence and she felt the way her own heart refused to beat. She knew that he might be talking about getting back the terrorist instead of Steve. But even more than that – she realized there might not be enough of Steve to make getting him back anything he would want for himself.

It was a long shot – and they were risking making it worse much more than their odds of making it better were.

And everyone was waiting for her to make the final call.

She looked down at his face, so peaceful and relaxed, and at his hand in hers, limp and without any strength.

He wouldn't want to come back as a vegetable.

The door to the room cracked open and Aerith's voice hissed:

"Hurry it up! There's a nurse we've already turned away twice trying to prep him."

"Do it." Tifa's head came up and her eyes were determined. "Give him the chance to fight."

Then she held his hand to her lips and she silently prayed.

"I don't understand why you haven't told the doctors about this," Wedge protested as he began to hook the patient in the bed into the head gear. "I'm sure they'd be willing to try this. It's not as if we like death calls."

"They would, in turn, be expected to alert the company."

"And our boys would get a hold of the news too," Black added to White's explanation and at Tifa's curious look he elaborated. "Can you imagine what a large corporation or even a government would do if they could get a hold of someone that had survived in the 'Net for weeks? I'm all about my country and all but there's no way I'm risking Cloud that way."

"All set," Wedge announced as he stepped back.

"This could kill him," White remarked blandly from his laptop, not even looking up from the screen. Tifa glanced at the clock on the wall.

"Then we'll be two minutes early."

White lifted his head and for a long minute their eyes met, equal parts desperation and determination in both sets. Then he nodded and bent back to the keyboard.

"Swift, if you will be so kind as to make sure everything is set?"

"On it," Swift was already tracing wires and cords, checking lights and listening close to the hum of computers running. There was the sound of a commotion outside the room and what sounded like someone getting sick. Almost proudly, Zack commented:

"She's amazing, isn't she?"

The proud affection made Tifa's throat close over and then she heard White intone:

"Now."

There was a slight jerk from the body in the bed as the computer interfaced with it but Tifa already knew that from experience. Holding her breath, she only realized how tightly she was squeezing his hand when her own started to ache and she carefully relaxed her grip, just a little, eyes scanning his face for any sign of reaction at all. Wedge hovered near the monitor showing Cloud's vital signs. Black hovered near the door. Mace hovered near Swift until he batted at her. White typed keys in the silence, fingers flying over his laptop.

Outside the rain continued to fall in drizzling, sporadic bursts.

The monitor continued its steady beep and the respirator continued its quiet hissing. Tifa finally dared pull her eyes away from Cloud's face and shot a look at White. He was too absorbed in his laptop however. Swift was the one that answered, voice a quiet drone.

"He's huntin' down the blip. Kinda offering the cheese to the mouse to coax it into the trap. Trap in this case being Cloudo's body. He managed to tag it last time he found it so it's faster but he didn't manage to tag it until just this afternoon. Hence our last minute cavalry charge. 'Cause, you know, it wouldn't be dramatic if we tried pullin' this yesterday."

Mace lightly wacked him on the back of his head and he made a disgruntled noise and shot her a look. She ignored him to reach over and give Tifa's hair an unexpected ruffle. Effectively messing up what she'd worked so hard to make perfect earlier. She couldn't find it in her to care.

"Don't worry about it, Teef. I'm sure it's Steve. He'll be back in no time and then you two can invite me to the wedding. But I get to be maid of honor, not Jessie, got it? 'Cause we were friends first and all."

"Okay," Tifa agreed, even knowing that leaving Mace in charge of the bridal shower and bachelorette party was handing the keys to a candy store to a little kid. At the moment though she'd grab anything that promised a future with Steve in it.

"Come on…" Black voice from the door where he was now leaning against to block the polite knocking was coaxing and worried, perfectly voicing Tifa's own emotions. In front of her, Cloud's face stayed lax and his body stayed limp. White's fingers stopped their tapping.

"There," his voice was quiet as he announced that he'd done everything he could. Eyes starting to grow hot and dry, Tifa stared into the face in the bed next to her, waiting… waiting.

The computer lights flickered in the computer towers. The monitor beeped.

"I've been rooting for you two all along," Wedge stated quietly. Tifa lifted her face and gave him a weak smile. The polite tapping on the door shifted to stern warnings and a push that had Black leaning heavier against it.

And the monitor's steady pattern of beeps went suddenly high and monotone.

"No-" her face snapped back around so quickly the room spun and Wedge leap forward, gently but firmly pushing her a little to the side as the respirator suddenly seized up and stopped its pumping. Black's attempt at barring the door now earned shouts of alarm.

"No, no, no, no," Wedge was muttering it while he pulled tubes and the face shield away from the man on the bed.

"We're fucked," Swift announced calmly.

And then Tifa felt the hand she'd wrapped both of hers around, very gently, squeeze.

"Steve!"

Everyone ignored her because the monitor was still flatlining and Black was having to put all his weight against the door to keep it shut. Desperate, Tifa wrapped both hands around Cloud's and squeezed back, resting their interlocked knot of flesh and bone over her own heart.

"He squeezed my hand!"

"Teef…" Swift gave her a look and she knew he was going to say that it was a final reflex as his spirit kicked off from his body. She refused to believe it though. Instead, she raised it his hand to her lips and very lightly bit his knuckles.

The hand in hers squeezed again.

"He did it again!"

Wedge, busy tilting Cloud's head backward and ready to start CPR, hesitated and she let go with one of her hands to catch at the back of his smock.

"Check him!" she demanded. "Check to see if he's breathing."

"Teef – " Swift was starting to sound worried and he moved over as if he was going to physically pull her off. But he didn't. Not yet. The monitor was high pitched and Black gave up his battle at the door. The respirator was flat as well, dead in its spot. Wedge, seconds from being pulled away by furious doctors, lowered his head and simply rested his ear over Cloud's chest.

She held her breath.

Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath and only the rain continued down.

One of the towers shorted out with a fizzing noise.

And Cloud suddenly sucked in a horrible, wheezing breath and shoved Wedge off of him as he rolled to the side and started coughing as if he was going to hack up both lungs. His hand had a painful, death grip on Tifa's but he could have broken bones and she wouldn't have cared. Instead she ignored all the doctors trying to get close enough over the computer towers to see what was going on and huddled close, leaning over him, rubbing his back with her free hand as if he was a small child. There was nothing in his stomach to choke up and he finally got the heaves under control, sucking in harsh breaths. One of the doctors stepped forward and with a ferocity she hadn't known she had in her, Tifa slashed narrowed eyes at the man and snapped:

"Don't you touch him!"

Voice raw and a little painful, the entire room still heard it when the man in the bed murmured:

"That's my girl."


	21. Epilogue

_here we are my best beloveds and gentle readers. It may have seemed as if we'd never get here at times but - ta da! Much thanks to everyone that's stuck with me through the long wait. I hope it's been worth it._

Epilogue:

Steve – Cloud – lasted less than an hour after he came out of his coma.

It was a rare moment of peace. After their friends and their equipment had been forcefully ejected from the hospital building with threats of police if they ever came back, the doctors had hauled Cloud out of the room so fast Tifa hadn't even been able to get a word in edgewise. Wedge had disappeared and when she finally did track down a nurse who actually knew what was going on it was to be informed that they were running tests on him to see if his prolonged bout of unconsciousness had caused any lasting or temporary damage. While Tifa could understand the importance of finding any blood clots that his sudden motion might have knocked loose immediately or any areas that might be oxygen starved in his brain, she still couldn't help but feel that the doctors were intruding on time that was rightfully hers.

Theirs.

So with the determination and 'I belong here' walk of a school teacher on a mission, Tifa hunted down the latest room they had him in, uncomfortable in a wheeled bed in a waiting room while they prepped some large and swallowing looking machine through the door. He was restlessly trying to pick off his id bracelet as she strode in the door.

And then his blue eyes came up and she froze.

Had they always been that electric a blue?

Had he always looked that handsome despite the stubble and the scowl?

She knew she should rush to him. That she should throw her arms around him. That there should be serious kissing despite the bed breath that would probably taste like plastic tubing. He was alive! She should be walking on clouds, dancing down the aisles, hugging everyone within arms range. And yet, even when she finally saw him, there was still a hesitance. A refusal to trust what was in front of her.

And then he smiled.

It was a weak twitch and it didn't hit his worried eyes but it was the brief upturn of his lips and it softened his haggard face.

"Hey…" his voice was still raw at its edges and he'd reverted to English but – something inside her gave a great shiver, like a block of ice starting to break apart and she felt her own mouth tremble a weak smile as she meekly answered:

"…hey…"

Across the room, his eyes searched her face, hungry and desperate and apologetic and lost. The rest of the world seemed very far away and muffled. He wet his lips.

"I promised I'd come back."

Whatever was left inside of her shattered at his broken words and suddenly she was across the room without realizing she'd moved, clinging to him more desperately than she'd ever held on to anything in all her life. She didn't even realize she was crying until he made a soft, throaty noise, face buried in her hair. He had his arms wound just as tightly around her and he was rocking, just the littlest bit, the comforting gesture of a million protectors hovering over their breaking loved ones. Words stumbled out of her and she wasn't even aware of what she was saying, just – the fear and the loneliness and the hope and the hopelessness. And whatever it was that he heard, he murmured back:

"Me too, sweetheart. Me too."

Her mini-nervous breakdown lasted a lot longer then she knew she should have let it. Especially considering he should be the one having it, not her. But when she finally pulled back enough to look at his face it was to see that the tension and weary, etched lines had softened out of it and the light was back in his eyes as he looked at her. Tender he cupped her face with his palm before stroking gently down and her eyes shut in response to the wonderful feel of his skin, his real skin, warm and aware, moving against hers. After a minute more, he lowered his head and his nose brushed against hers before she felt the gentle press of his forehead against hers. He smelled like hospital and disinfectant and under all of that, he smelled like himself. Her arms wrapped tighter.

"Get me out of here."

His whisper was quiet and her eyes flew open to find the blue of his, except his were still closed.

"Steve – "

He shook his head against her, eyes still closed.

"I can't stand it in here. Everything's too tight and too loud. Get me out of here, Yumi. Black's already downstairs with the car."

Her eyebrows went up, wondering if that was the usual Special Ops routine, to linger with the engine waiting at hospital doors. But if Black knew him at all it simply made sense that Cloud would make a break for it the second he was able to.

She had to wonder if, perhaps, all his time spent in the waiting room of the hospital she'd been kept in as a child had any bearing on that.

She shouldn't. No matter how he asked, she shouldn't. What if there were blood clots or oxygen discrepancies or other things that the doctors would only know with their invasive tests and leaving before they would done – what if it killed him? …except she couldn't refuse the tamped down desperation in his voice or fail to notice the growing lines of tension in his face as it tightened. Hurriedly, she shot a glance toward the other room where the techs were working at the keyboard of the machine.

"It keeps trying to run a self-diagnostic when they try to start the scanning program. We've got time."

Leave it to a Special Ops to listen in on conversation in the other room while comforting his girlfriend through a nervous breakdown, she thought, wryly and then nodded. One of his blue eyes flickered open at the move and a crooked smile, weak but honest and real appeared on his lips.

There was a folded wheelchair in the corner of the room, probably there to take patients back and forth and she quickly unfolded and pulled it over to him. It must have been a sign of just how worn out he was that he didn't protest and insist on shuffling. Instead he gingerly transferred himself from the bed to the chair, weak and shaky but capable with her help. He was going to have to get used to using his own legs again but they could do that together. Somewhere that wasn't here.

"It's cold," he complained in a mutter as she wheeled him down the hall and she had the absurd urge to snicker at the way he held down the short hem of his hospital gown. The glint of blue over his shoulder said he'd heard her amusement anyway and didn't appreciate it. Gentle, she stroked his hair as they waited for one of the automatic doors to open. He huffed but didn't protest again.

The walk through the hospital seemed to take forever and in a very short order she realized his eyes were closed and his face was all hard angles and tensely stretched skin again. If he was in pain and not telling her she was going to hurt him. At every turn, every new hallway, every room they passed, she expected someone to call out and stop them. When she actually had to cross in front of a nurse's station, she held her breath the entire time and put on her best 'busy with no time to stop and chat' face, moving with the collected determination of someone who had somewhere else important to be.

No one stopped them.

By the time she reached the front doors, her heart was pounding and her skin felt cold and shaky. But she kept her head high and walked with a smooth easy stride, never once faltering or glancing down at the blond head in the wheelchair in front of her.

The sunlight was almost a shock when they stepped out of the artificial climate of the hospital and into the everyday smells and sounds of the rest of the world. True to Cloud's prediction, White was behind the wheel of an obviously rented SUV while Black was standing next to the open front passenger side door of it, grin on his face even brighter and bigger than the sun overhead.

"Nice dress," he commented as she wheeled the chair to a stop in front of him and Cloud grunted.

"Shut up and help me, dipshit."

Black snorted a sound that might have been laughter if it hadn't held just the edge of breaking to it. Tifa pretended not to notice the way his hold on Cloud was a hug as much as support as they both staggered the few steps to the car and she politely returned the wheelchair to the sidewalk. Cloud shifted on the seat, scowl back on his face as he, again, fought with the hemline of his gown but when Black tried to shut the door, he caught it almost casually with his hand.

"I need Yumi. Tifa." His blue eyes locked on her over the top of Zack's head and they were bright with fever but aware and in need. It was entirely improper not to mention awkward – and she didn't hesitate to climb up and into the seat with him, settling down in his lap. His arms closed around her like bands of iron and tucked her in close against the hard angles of him. His body might need a little bit of exercise to get used to motivating around on his own again but he hadn't lost much muscle mass while he was sleeping and it showed in the way he held her so tightly.

Black shut the door and seconds later he was in the back seat and the car was smoothly and without alarm, pulling away from the building. White said nothing until they'd merged into traffic. When he finally did speak it was to calmly ask:

"You texted Black to request an extract?"

Cloud lowered his face and pressed it into her hair and Tifa snuggled in close. Mumbled, he answered:

"Yeah."

"Yet neither you nor Tifa have a phone and I highly doubt any of the staff let you near theirs."

There was a very long pause in which she realized that something very important had just been said – and her exhausted mind refused to pick up on it. Against her Cloud exhaled and snuggled her a little tighter into his lap.

"Yeah."

"Interesting," White merely offered in response. "Please don't reprogram the computer in the dash. I've already set it for the proper mileage."

Against her, for the first time, she felt Cloud relax and he sighed out. She felt as much as heard his smile as he shut his eyes and answered contentedly:

"Yeah."

_At the end of my journey I met a man. When I asked him 'what comes next?' he smiled and told me:_

_"Another beginning."_


	22. Cast List

**cast list:**

special love to everyone that made it so much fun with trying to guess who was who with their code names. Hopefully I represented everyone well enough that, name or no name, they were recognizable. But just in case, here's a list of the crew. And a special high five to everyone that go the inside joke that 'Steve' and 'Ayumi' are the names of the English and Japanese voice actors for Cloud and Tifa ;)

Swift – Reno

Mace – Yuffie

Black – Zack

White – Sephiroth

Lily - Tseng

Tifa's fiancée - Rude

Terrorists – Yazoo, Loz, Kadaj (with Kadaj being the one inside the computer)


End file.
